Summer love isn't always easy
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: After saving Alex, dumping Tess and the baby light-years away, and reuniting long-lost lovers, what's left to do? ROAD TRIP TO THE BEACH of course! And Ava finds her heart torn in a way that she never quite expected. Sequel to Divergence.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey," Rath said as he charged through the front door. "Whatcha think of Corpus Christi?"

Like a lot of Rath's conversational openers, this one threw me for a long moment. "Umm... well, if a bunch of religious humans decide that they can hand out bread every sunday, and in some real way it becomes the meat off a guy who got offed nearly two thousand years ago, well... I don't exactly hold it against them, but I don't believe the same thing and frankly, I wouldn't be chowing down if I d..."

Rath was shaking his head by this point, apparently just as confused as I'd been. "What are you rambling on about?"

"Umm... 'Corpus Christi,' I repeated. Literally, 'Body of Christ' from the Latin. Presumably a reference to the theological doctrine that..."

"No, not anything literally from the Latin or theological," Rath insisted. "Corpus Christi, TEXAS." Just exactly as if that explained everything. "As in the beach!!"

Ohh. "You want to go to Texas?"

"I want to go to a beach, a real beach on the Ocean, and it looks like Texas is the closest. It was... um, Evans' idea I think, and possibly the smartest thing I've heard him say yet."

"Alright, lemme think about it." I went into the lounge and collapsed onto the futon.

By the way, I should probably mention at this point, that Rath and I aren't crashing in the abandoned house anymore, the one that you'd already be familiar with if you heard the tale of how we came to Roswell. Turns out there were some people in the neighborhood who complained about suspicious activity to Sheriff Blackwood, and since we really didn't want the high eye of the law looking for us, the two of us came partly out of hiding and became semi-respectable members of the Roswell, holding down jobs and paying rent on an apartment together. He's an attendant at a highway car wash, and I'm waiting tables at a honky-tony roadhouse. Interesting it ain't, but ya gotta get paid huh?

"Actually, leaving town and taking a break sounds like a good idea," I said before I realized I was going to. "But... well, you know, life at the beach doesn't exactly come cheap."

"You worry too much - it'll work out somehow," he said, chuckling slightly. "Aren't you the one who used to tell me that we don't need to take care of everything ourselves? We got the crew here in Roswell, and I think all of 'em are looking to cut out for a little before their senior year hits. From each according to their ability, huh?"

"It's always a bad idea to quote the communists, especially now that they've lost," I drawled. Rath just shrugged and started to ransack the kitchen cupboards looking for something tasty to eat in a hurry. "Well, I gotta getta work."

He looked up at that, one hand stuck inside a box of cracker-chips. "What, already??"

"Yeah, I got the evening shift tonight, oh joy. Buncha overweight drunks who think they can just slap my ass."

"I hope you give 'em another think comin'!" Rath exclaimed.

"Ehh, can't start fights with the regulars," I told him. "Isn't good for business. Besides - ain't a one of 'em who's actually managed to lay a hand on me. They just keep tryin' though." And, demonstrating my evasive tactics with a little shake from the hip at the end of the routine, I slipped out the door and headed off to work.

Work sucked that night. I won't speak of it.

The sun woke me up the next morning at around quarter to seven AM, which wasn't nearly enough sleep considering how late I'd gotten back from the bar, but what could you do? I got dressed in a casual outfit and walked over to a little all-night diner near the apartment. I'd have loved to go stop in at the Crashdown, but it's still too risky - a lot of people there know my face, and I'm not sure what would be worse - someone mistaking me for Tess, or somebody seeing the resemblance and figuring out that I'm *not* Tess. The only good part is that because Rath and I can't go to the Crashdown, a lot of the gang have stopped going there so much, so as not to cut us out, and have been hanging out at the places that Rath and I go to.

That was the case this time around. Alex and Isabel were sitting across from each other at the far end of a booth, with Kyle for some reason sitting with a chair pulled up to the edge of the booth instead of sitting beside either of them. As I walked up, I realized that I wouldn't be able to pull the same trick as Kyle - there was only just room for one chair there. "Hey, guys. Saving these seats for anybody?" I indicated the empty places in the booth."

"Umm, no, not really," Isabel said absently, staring with fixed attention at a sheaf of notebook paper she was holding in both hands. So I slipped in next to Alex, and we shared a friendly smile. Alex Whitman's my homeboy, yo. We got pretty close when he was hiding out with Rath 'n' me, and as far as I can tell the friendship hasn't suffered much now that he's been reunited with all of his friends - and, of course, with his smokin' alien honey. "Want some breakfast?" said alien honey asked, still looking at her papers.

"Um - no, I came by here to stick the place up. We're behind on the rent," I deadpanned as well as I could. Kyle snorted and Alex chuckled, but Isabel didn't even seem to notice. Well, breakfast was good, but it could wait. "So, Valenti - Corpus Christi, huh?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Rath said he was gonna tell you. Whatcha think?"

"Break's always appreciated, but the money is no-kidding-tight." I picked up the menu and, reminded of the budgetary issue, started scanning for less expensive but filling items. "Any idea where we'd be staying out there in Texas, as in a place to sleep and so on?"

"Umm... no, hadn't really thought it through that far," Kyle admitted. "Cheap motel probably, or maybe find a campsite and pitch tents."

"We could try looking for space at a youth hostel or something," Alex suggested.

The waitress came by at that point and I ordered (toast and a small order of scrambled eggs,) and peered over at Isabel. "Just WHAT the heck are you frowning over at there, girl??"

"Hmm?" Isabel looked up at me and smiled nervously. I guess that out of all Alex's friends, Isabel and Michael are still the ones most nervous about me - which makes sense - when the rest of them were getting used to the fact that we were here in Roswell and had saved Alex's life, Isabel and Michael were off-world, babysitting a pregnant Tess and making sure that the Granilith didn't fall into the wrong hands. "Ohh, nothing much -- just notes on a few junior college courses that I might want to be taking in the fall. My enrollment window is coming up tomorrow, so I kinduv need to make up my mind, or give up my best chance at actually getting into the courses I want."

"Enrollment window?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah, the course enrollment system is all computerized, but it's not just a free-for-all over the internet," Alex explained. "They set up a window sequence so that only a few people are on the system at any one time - and so that certain people get a better chance of getting spots in the courses that they want. First the most senior students, randomized within the class rankings or something, and then the kids who were freshmen last year, and then the new students in the order that their applications were accepted. Isabel's actually pretty near the end of the line anyway, so it doesn't make a huge difference whether she enrolls now or once the entire queue has been gone through and the entire system opens up for people to make course changes... but she's so organized that she wants to make the most out of every opportunity." Isabel looked at him over the papers, but couldn't maintain a frustrated glare for more than about two seconds, and smiled affectionately at him.

"Well, that's nice I guess," I said. College courses weren't exactly my thing... even if I had the money and such to go out and get myself some institutional learnin'. Then again... maybe I'd better do *something* in the way of education, or I'll still be waiting tables when I'm forty and not pretty enough to get good tips anymore. Lonnie was always hot on getting back home, instead of learning to live in this world, but I think I've decided that I like Earth fine and want to stick around - always assuming that I have the choice. Hmm... so, was it time to figure out 'what do I want to do when I grow up' now?? "Erm, what about you, Alex? Been up to anything interesting??"

"Ehh, not really." Alex sighed. "Still doing the summer school thing - nearly caught up on all of the classes I missed on account of being presumed dead." Oh, right, he'd told me about that before. Even before Isabel and Michael got back, while Max and Liz and the others were off chasing down Lonnie and trying to figure out when they'd be making it back, Alex's parents had worked out the summer school deal. They're always encouraging him about the 'using his brain to the fullest' thing - not really pushing hard enough that he resents it, but... well, Alex's dad is a smart guy too, from what I can tell, and he's done pretty well with that path, so I guess they just want to make sure their boy can keep up. That's cool, in my book.

We chatted more about the possibilities of the Texas beaches, and about other stuff that doesn't really matter, and then Alex said he had to leave for classes. Isabel got up too, she usually drives him over to Roswell high, which is where they run summer school for the whole town. Kyle sat down opposite me when I sat back down in front of my little crusts of toast after they left. After sighing for a moment, I brought up one of the crusts and started nibbling on it.

"Still hungry, aren't you?" Kyle asked, and I looked up, feeling guilty though I'm not quite sure why. "Order something else, if you like, on me."

"No, come on..." The discussion I'd had with Rath the night before about charity and making our own way was still very much with me. "No way you're paying for food for me, I mean, isn't your family..."

"Oh, no, we're well back on our feet," Kyle said, and I realized that I was still thinking of the situation many months ago, when I first came to town. "Dad's got a job back, after all, and I'm still working all the hours that I can at the garage. Plus, we don't have a certain lying traitor to feed, so money is very much not a problem."

I was starting to feel like I might lose this battle of wills. "Well, if you just want to be generous and help a struggling girl out..." Kyle grinned, and I picked the menu up again. The sausages were starting to sound awfully good, and maybe a few pancakes.

By the time my second breakfast order showed up, Kyle was in the middle of a crazy story about a Valentine's day contest, and getting Max drunk on a single drop of whiskey, (well, a small sip or something anyway,) and the two of them breaking into Liz's bedroom. You've probably heard it over and over, but I really enjoyed the way Kyle talked, more than the plot itself. In fact, I was starting to decide that I just plain liked Kyle.

Kinda seemed that he 'just plain liked' me too, though I wasn't quite sure how to tell for certain. I'd heard a little bit second-hand of the odd relationship that he'd had with Tess himself, and he had to be still feeling rotten over the way she'd turned out. I think that he might have had a hard time trusting me, too, if I hadn't happened to be involved in Alex's apparent resurrection, which I guess kind of helps to cancel out the worst of what Tess did, or at least keeps me from looking guilty by association. (Not that I ever 'associated' with her much in the conventional sense, but I *am* associated with her in a conceptual way, because we share the same origins.)

Before I had either finished my pancakes or come to terms with what I was starting to feel for Kyle, some new familiar faces came in - Max, Liz, and Michael. Maria apparently was still on shift at the Crashdown, which made sense. To make room I moved aside to where Alex had been sitting before, and waved Kyle to come and replace me, so that we would be sitting side by side. Max and Liz took the opportunity to sit next to each other as well, and Michael took the chair at the end of the table.

They had all been talking about Texas and the beach before they came into the diner, and I felt myself getting swept up into the topic again. I'd never really had much of a chance to visit the ocean - well, I've been on the Jersey shores a few times, but not during summertime, and it was pretty depressing actually.

"It's actually off-season for Texas I think, which means that we might be able to find someplace nice and cheap," Liz said. "The downside of that is, well... the weather is probably going to be very hot and muggy, and there might be tropical thunderstorms or that kind of thing."

"Ehh, doesn't sound that bad," Kyle replied. "If we stay here, it'll probably be hot and bone-dry, without a single drop of rain. I don't think that the mugginess can be all that much worse. I've been in Georgia during August."

"Okay, who's Georgia, and was she a bleach blonde?" Michael joked. Kyle blushed slightly, and Liz slapped Michael down. Kyle clarified that he'd been talking about Georgia the state.

"Well, it sounds okay to me," I said. "Assuming that I can get the... aww, hang it. If Lester doesn't want to give me the time off, then I can find a new gig when I get back to Roswell."

"That's the spirit," Max said. "But I don't think anybody's likely to be losing jobs just for asking for some unpaid vacation time."

"Well, my folks might have a bit of a hard time covering for Maria, Michael, and I all at the same time," Liz pointed out. "But you're right. Any idea when we'd be trying to leave?"

"Hmm... why don't we say Sunday morning?" Kyle suggested. "Three days from now. Is that enough notice?"

"Sounds cool by me," Michael replied. "Hey, Ava, by the way. What is with that haircut Rath got a few days ago??"

"Umm... I dunno, maybe he just felt like a change," I said. "Why? Do you feel personally offended or something, your face attached to hair looking like that?"

Michael shrugged weakly. "Just seemed weird is all."

Then the waitress came to take new orders.

---------

As it turned out, the manager at work didn't much mind when I told him that I'd be needing six days off the next week, and the remaining days were mostly filled with preparations. It was a little weird to be getting ready to move again, for just a short trip this time and then back - after living in New York for so long, coming to Roswell first, then wandering around for months before coming back. But I was really looking forward to hitting the beach.

A few things are probably important enough to mention here. One is that Max and Michael invited me 'n' Rath over to watch while they tried talking on the little comm doohickey that Michael brought back from the alien planet. Neither of us really had that much to contribute - we'd never talked to alien authorities directly before, and... well, though there was supposed to be translation stuff built in, we all had a hard time understanding what was going on. Maybe nobody had warned the other people who were usually chatting on this frequency that a few people from Earth might 'log on.' Max was trying to ask a whole bunch about Tess and if anything was happening already about the baby. I understand him being more than a little anxious, especially considering what happened the last time he saw her, but - well, no news was forthcoming, this time, or not any we could understand. Max gave up after about half an hour and we played cards instead, since that was less frustrating. (Despite Rath's nearly constant attempts to use his powers to cheat.)

Isabel and Maria also invited me along for bikini shopping, which was another eye opener. Never really needed to wear a swimming suit before (see above under 'the beach',) and, well... It looks like Isabel is used to hanging out at the neighborhood community pool and driving the boys crazy in her little brightly colored outfits. I wondered if Alex would pitch a fit when he saw her in one of those getups. Probably not - he doesn't seem like a terribly insecure or jealous guy... after all that he and 'Bel have been through, he probably realizes that he doesn't need to worry about the fact that she can make other little boys drool. Maybe he'll just get excited - I have to admit the girl is defintely put together like a stretch of mountainous scenery. Lonnie was like that too, though she didn't show it off quite so much, for a bunch of reasons.

Maria wasn't quite as much the showoff, though she certainly seemed more used to the routine than me. Mostly she seemed to be more concerned with trying to help me out than in shopping for herself, which I appreciate. I kept an eye on the price tags, since I felt that this much, at least, I should pay out of my own pocket, and came away with two suits - a fairly casual pink set with a tankini top, and a more daring bikini in a stretchy black fabric. Get ready, boys - here comes Ava. Well, in a little while I'll be ready to let a guy see me like this, I hope.

We gathered on Sunday morning at the Evans' place. Nine people, several cars to choose from for a long trip... Maria's mom's little Volkswagon, Alex's old sedan, Kyle's sporty red thing, and the old van that Rath had picked up somewhere in Oklahoma. We hadn't planned for this beforehand. "Hmm," Max said, considering. "Well, trying to fit into two cars will mean less gas and less difficulty in convoying... think you can fit in five people and some luggage, Rath?"

"Sure man," he said laconically.

"I guess I'm the best choicefor car number two, then," Alex volunteered. I think that most of the gang still hasn't quite recovered from the fact that Max trashed his Jeep, back when he thought he'd be leaving Earth with Tess and the others, and probably not coming back. "How about me - Isabel..." She grinned and hugged Alex's arm when he picked her first, like there was any doubt that he'd want her with him, "and Michael and Maria?" Okay, that makes sense... keeping Rath and Michael away from each other. Those two still get on each other's nerves, maybe just because they don't really like seeing their face on somebody else... or maybe it's really some weird kind of sibling rivalry. Well, good enough in any case.

"So that leaves Rath, Kyle and I... Max and Liz in the van," I pointed out. "Works alright." We started packing up the cars - with the exception of Isabel and Maria, nobody had packed terribly much, and things worked out fairly well. Max and Isabel's parents came out to say goodbye to them, (probably just wanting to reassure each other that their kids would be back in less than a week, after Isabel disappeared for more than a month.) Then we saddled up into the cars and rode off into the east.

I took the first stretch sitting beside Rath in the shotgun position, though a part of me felt that I'd rather be elsewhere - wherever Kyle was, next to him, talking about nothing important and listening to his voice again. But Kyle was sitting in the back, where there was only room for one person to sit next to a pile of suitcases and other luggage. Two people could sit next to each other in the middle of the van, but big surprise - Max and Liz had taken those spots, and were whispering in hushed tones, with blushes and small smiles on their faces. I wondered for a moment what they were saying, but quickly decided that I really didn't want to know.

"Wait a second!" Rath exclaimed. "We shoulda took the south road outta town, not this way. Corpus Christi is east, but I think it's further to the south."

I fumbled around looking for a map for a little bit. "Hmm... probably yeah, but since we're several minutes out of town, it's not worth worrying about," I decided. "We can swing around southward at, umm, at Tatum."

"But that means driving for hours on little county roads, instead of taking the Interstate," Rath argued. "I'm turning back."

"285 isn't an Interstate anyway, just a state highway," Max called out from where he was sitting. I hadn't realized that he'd pay any attention to us, since he had his Lizzy-pooh. "We'll do okay this way I think - just route through Brownfield and San Angelo." I started looking for Brownfield on the map.

"Nuts to San Angelo," Rath argued tersely. "I'm turning back." And he swung the van into a sudden u-turn, hard enough that it pressed me up against the door handle. We swung around just in time to see Alex and Maria waving as they passed us by - obviously having no intention at all of turning back just because we were.

"Come on, Rath," I said. "Just turn around again and follow them, okay?"

"No, come on, why not take the south route?" Liz asked. Max blinked a little in surprise that she was joining the conversation too. "I actually think Rath might be right, that it'll be faster even counting the time to get back to 285 south... but there's another thing. Convoying off to some distant place - we've been there and done that. For the two cars to travel seperate routes makes it seem a bit more fun. We have cell phones, so we can stay in touch, and rendezvous somewhere near San Antonio."

Rath laughed. "I have to say, I like the way you think, Liz. We'll beat 'em to Antoni." And he gunned the gas and we took off west, heading back into town.

"Umm... do you want to weigh in here before it's too late, Kyle?" Max asked, seeing that he didn't have much chance of arguing Rath out of this unless he could muster a full majority against him.

"I'm up for a race, I guess," Kyle said, and Max sighed. "Let's do it!"

"Okay." I looked through the maps again. "South route is simple, actually - keep on the south 285 until it hits I-10, then follow the ten east."

"Rock-n-roll," Rath growled, and hit the gas just a little harder.

"Watch out," Kyle complained. "Blackwood is mean if he catches you speeding."

-----------

"So she thought *you* had taken her journal?" I whispered. Kyle nodded. "What did she do?"

"Umm... well, she found me down at the ball diamond and asked all of these probing questions, like she was trying to be clever about it," Kyle answered. I'd taken over with the driving, not long after we passed the Texas state line, and we were nearly at Pecos and the I-20, not that that was the 'I' we wanted. "I still remember how cute she looked in the shirt she wore that day." Max grunted from behind him. "And... well, I'm not sure about the rest - I *think* that somebody broke into our house that night looking for the thing. Evans, would you happen to know anything about it?"

"Yeah, I admit, I came with Liz. Actually, it might have been my idea," Max said. "I don't think we were the only ones there that night either - Topolsky might have come, or sent a trained FBI burglar, to look for it too. Which is actually pretty funny, since it had never been there in the first place, right Kyle?"

"Yeah... *really* funny," Kyle grumped. "How the heck did Topolsky find out about any of it? Why did she care about the journal?"

"Alex told her that Liz and Maria had been on his case about the journal," Max said softly, as if part of his mind was back there in the memory from so long ago. "He didn't understand why Liz was so upset about losing it - this was before he knew what was going on - with us, and the whole thing, Kyle."

"Yeah, I figured," Kyle answered. "Considering how he reacted after you'd been in the hospital, Max - and that was later than the journal caper."

"Right." Max nodded. "But I think Topolsky suspected enough to read between the lines. If Liz had just found out about aliens, and Liz was really upset that her journal was missing, then it stands to reason that the journal might have written information and reactions talking about aliens. As far as how she suspected you, Kyle - that I don't know. Maybe it was just a case of you being the most likely suspect, since she'd broken up with you the week before."

"Oh, great," Kyle sighed.

"Wait a second - then who DID take the journal?" I asked. "Did Topolsky get ahold of it? Was that how you ended up in the White Room, Max? No... the timing definitely doesn't make sense that way."

Max smiled slightly. "Umm... I never found out who, exactly. Liz said that a friend returned it - I've tried to get more details, but she's always oddly quiet about it."

"Huh," Kyle muttered, and I appreciated the sentiment. The whole story seemed unresolved at that point - and even if Liz were liable to spill the dirt, we couldn't ask her right now, because she was snoozing in the back - she'd been so excited that she hadn't got much sleep last night, apparently.

"Out of curiosity," Rath asked, "just what was Michael up to around this point?"

Max jumped at the question. "Mostly taking art classes and drawing pictures of a geodesic dome - that's kinduv a long story though."

"Hmm." Rath considered that. "That probably didn't keep him TERRIBLY busy, though."

"Heh?" After a second, I realized what he was driving at. "Rath, are you trying to imply that *Michael* was the one who stole the diary?"

"Well, it's probably what I would have done in his place - not that that means a whole lot, but still I wonder," he said softly. "Probably this was around the time he realized that she wrote stuff in it, and started to wonder if she'd said anything about Max saving her life. Or anything else interesting that had happened by that point. Sneak up into her room sometime when he knew she'd be elsewhere, swipe it without her ever knowing, and go through it when he had time. Then, Liz told you, Max, and you told Michael and Isabel at some point, right?" Max nodded.

"Then he realized that he'd kept it too long, and things were spinning a bit out of control, and he couldn't risk leaving it and waiting for her to find it again - for one thing, there was an off chance that she wouldn't be the first one to find it after all. So he came to her, gave it back, explained his reasons why, and got her to agree, while she was still relieved to have it back and to know that the secret hadn't been broken, that she'd never tell you that he was the thief. Maybe capitalized on the scare to get her to keep it more securely, just in case someone else really would come after it."

"Wow," Max breathed. "Well... that does pretty much fit the facts, and it's a better explanation than I've ever come up with for why she was so mysterious about her 'friend.'" He looked up at Rath. "We'd probably better keep quiet about this theory of yours, though."

"Oh, come on!! I want to try freaking Michael out a bit - he could do with a bit of a poke like that."

"Might be good for Guerin, at that," Kyle said.

"Well, I dunno." Max turned and stared out the window. I waited to see if he would comment further on the subject, but nothiing more seemed to be forthcoming.

"Well, that's nothing," I said, deciding to try subtly moving the topic of conversation onwards. "I remember the time that Zan and Lonnie got it in their head to try stealing a shipment of caviar... not to fence it or anything. I think Zan was curious to see what it would taste like, and Lonnie - she just wanted to screw whoever would end up holding the bag for it. Insurance company or whatever - she felt that whoever was dealing in expensive swag needed to have things go wrong as often as she could arrange it."

"A charming pair," Kyle commented.

"Yeah. So... they just go up to the truck as it's loading up, straight off the ship, down at the docks, and..." It took me a while to finish the story, which involved a very mean little miniature bulldog who was somehow able to distract Zan's attention from using his powers each time he barked, and ended up with Lonnie having to take a shower to clean several thousand dollar's worth of gourmet fish eggs out of her cleavage. That got Kyle started on some of the poorly planned stunts that he and his old jock friends had attempted. My favorite was the one where they tried to stick un-wash-off-able dye crystals into the showerheads of a rival team, and got caught in the locker room by an assistant coach and equipment manager for the other team.

"Rest stop," Rath said, pointing out the window to where a group of buildings stood, not far from the road. "Anybody need to hit the head? Or a cool drink??"

There was a moment's silence. "Um, no, I think I'm good," Kyle said softly. Max shook his head no.

"I'm okay for waiting til the next one," I pointed out. "Rath?" He kind of shrugged. "And if Liz needed anything, she'd probably be awake - no point in disturbing her just to ask. On we go."

And on we went.

----------

"Watch out for the cow!" Liz called out.

"The cow?" Max repeated.

"My mistake - the cowS, plural." Sure enough there were several cows that had wandered onto the highway well ahead of us. And just at that moment, another car failed to avoid one of them. "Ewww," Max muttered, and Liz made a squeak of dismay.

"Hey, what happened?" Rath called out from the back. "Was it gorey?" Nobody answered him.

"Can - can we get through, or should I pull over?" Max asked, slowing down and checking his mirrors to make sure that somebody who wasn't yet aware of the cows wasn't going to rear-end us at top speed.

"Umm... yeah, let's grab some shoulder," Liz decided. She was navigating for Max at this point - big surprise. And wouldn't something like cows have to come up just before we made it to the actual Interstate? Max pulled over to the edge, and we sat and waited to see what else would happen. Several other cars had stopped... everyone was staying clear of the place where one sporty car had sideswiped a brown cow's butt and gotten partly stuck to it. The results, as you can imagine, hadn't been great either for cow or car, though they could have been a lot worse. One big station wagon pulled up slowly to the other side of the road, and seemed to be trying to scare the cows away from there with loud horn honking. That just might work, though I wouldn't have tried it myself I think - what if the cows just got angry and started butting the station wagon??

"I'm going to call Maria," Liz said, pulling out her cell phone. "She's just going to go nuts over it - probably get disappointed that she didn't go by the cow road herself."

"Ask them where they are," Rath called - he was still taking the 'race' idea seriously, though most of the rest of us had completely forgotten about it. Probably he was worried that the cows would cost us too much time. However, by the time Liz had hung up the phone, Volvo-man had succeeded in clearing two of the cows back out to their field, and we had pulled back out into the road and passed the last, hurt, cow and left it well behind.

"Well, they're just talking a 'stretch your legs' break right now," Liz reported to Rath. "Haven't crossed south of route 191 yet."

"Heck, we only intersected 191 a little ways back," Kyle said, "and they must be a lot further east than we are."

"191's further north where they'll be crossing it," Max answered. "But yeah, they're making better time than I would have thought." He flicked a nervous eye back to Rath, and then put a little more pressure on the gas, just so nobody could say he wasn't making good time.

----------

As it turned out, we managed to beat Alex's car to the McDonalds in the town where our paths met, by something like fifteen minutes. There was much junk food and gigantic disposable tumblers full of ice and bubbly soda, and everybody played crazy games running around in the parking lot because it felt so good not to be sitting in a car anymore, and when we were getting ready to go again, Alex asked if anybody wanted to switch cars.

"Umm... I think I'm good where I am, err, assuming that everybody else is," Kyle mumbled. I'm pretty sure that he shot at least one brief look in my direction, and maybe I read too much into that. Well, I read *something* into it - not quite sure if it was too much. Myself... well, I wouldn't have minded taking Kyle with me and going over to Alex's car, but that depended on whether two people wanted to switch from there. Alex probably wouldn't want to leave his car, and I doubted Michael would have any great inclination to come over and spend a lot of time with Rath. Maybe the two girls would... would really want to spend that much time away from their boyfriends?? Yeah, that seemed pretty dubious on the face of it. Sure enough, all three of them, Michael Maria and Isabel, were none too eager to catch my eye, looking like they were only half paying attention. Okay, looks like we stick pat.

"Hey, Guerin?" Rath called. "How about we and our ladies swap?" And he grabbed my arm, not hard enough to hurt, but deliberately enough that I was too startled to speak for a little while. Several of the others seemed very surprised at the insinuation that I was Rath's 'lady', especially Alex, Michael, and Kyle, but nobody objected on my behalf. I almost wish that they had.

"Umm... er, sure, I guess that we can hang out in the van," Michael muttered. "That is... as long as you're okay with other people driving your..."

"Yeah, it's fine," Rath declared, tossing his keys at Kyle. He'd been the one driving for the last stretch before the rendezvous - nobody had been able to argue him out of it, and, well... we might have still beat the other car if Rath hadn't been speeding, but probably not by as wide a margin.

"Ava," Maria said, staring into my eyes like I was in a hostage crisis - which I guess, in a vague way, is what it felt like to me. "You cool with this?"

"C'mon," Rath said to me in a milder and much less arrogant tone. "We'll catch up with our boy Alex, and get to know his girl a bit better. What's wrong with that??"

Well, nothing in and of itself... except that it would leave Kyle and me seperated. But... but I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to make a big hairy deal of that yet. There'd be plenty more opportunities to hang out with Kyle and flirt with him, if I wished, once we got to the beach. (Flirting in swimsuits, even - that sounded like fun!) Spending some time with Rath, Alex, and Isabel certainly didn't sound bad in and of itself.

"Okay, sure, I'm up for it," I agreed. So that was how we got into the cars - I sat behind Alex, in the back left seat, and was oddly glad of the fact that there was a pile of three suitcases between my own self and Rath. Couldn't get a really good look at Alex, because of the position of course, but when Isabel turned around a bit I could see her face in a classic profile, diagonally across the passenger compartment.

Isabel wasted no time in getting directly to the somewhat embarassing question. "So, Ava... you're fond of young mister Valenti, yes??"

When you don't want to lie or admit the truth, a good tactic is to be slightly evasive and answer with another question. "Who, me?"

"Don't give me that," Isabel drawled. "I saw how you were hovering in his area for the frisbee football game. Hoping that he would forget his own rules and TACKLE you, perhaps?" Isabel laughed softly - a good-natured laugh, not mean or anything, but I felt myself blushing uncomfortably.

I don't think I was the only one who was far from happy with this line of conversation, because Rath unleashed one of the rudest-sounding grunts that I'd ever heard him utter. "So, Rath, err -- any pretty girl caught your eye lately? Or is there no-one else who meets your high standards, now that... umm, after Lonnie and yourself decided to cut mutually loose?"

Rath scowled impressively at Isabel, (though they couldn't really see each other, since he was sitting behind her,) and made this grunting noise, deep in his throat. "Bug off - don't you have some hunger drive to organize in your head?"

"Rath!" Alex exclaimed in an upset voice.

"Hunger drives are more a winter thing, actually," Isabel muttered under her breath, nearly at the same time.

"Okay, okay, I get it - that was uncalled for," Rath grumped. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Isabel said with slightly stilted grace. "Maybe I shouldn't have stuck my nose in so suddenly." She sighed. "So... I'm going on a trip, obviously." I looked up at her, curious where this conversational tack was leading, if anywhere. "And I've packed... indigo eyeliner."

"Huh?" Rath muttered.

"Yeah, I don't believe you OWN any Indigo makeup," I put in. "Wouldn't be a flattering shade on you." Isabel just smiled mysteriously.

After a few seconds, Alex jumped slightly in his seat - well, not really, but I could see the muscles of his shoulders and neck twitch with what seemed like an intuitive realization. "Alright. I'm going on a trip, and I've packed... an arc welder." This time Rath and I were both speechless. "Your turn, Ava," Alex prompted.

"Umm... okay," I muttered, not sure what to do. Well, follow through with the formula as best I could. "I'm going on a trip and I've packed... a black bikini." Isabel shook her head slightly. "What, I did!" Alex was shaking his head too. Then it occured to me - this was some kind of game, and what they had said were NOT the kinds of things that they'd really pack. Should I have made something up? "Okay, gimme a minute..."

"No, you only get one chance per go-round I'm afraid, Ava," Isabel said. "Rath??"

Conflicting emotions were fairly visible on Rath's blunt face. He was at least a little tempted to tell Izzie to stuff it, I guessed, but the urge to show me up and get the puzzle right before I could was too strong. "Okay, I'm going on a trip, and I've packed... a phaser pistol."

"Sorry, I don't think so," Alex said, and Rath's face fell from the expectation of triumph into frustration. We all turned our attention silently back to Isabel.

She closed her eyes in thought for a moment. "Well, I did pack an ink eraser."

Alex chuckled - apparently he didn't feel that she needed to repeat the entire routine this time. "Um, let's see... I'm pretty sure I brought an Apple washer."

I growled a little, realizing that it was now my turn... and suddenly, a possibly answer occured to me. Initials... both of Isabel's things had started with the letters I and then E, and Alex's latest, at least, with an A and then a W. (I couldn't remember Alex's first offhand.) IE for Isabel Evans, AW for Alex Whitman. Was that it?

And if so, how to deal with the fact that I'd never really assumed a last name, human-style?? Well, maybe be straightforward about it, as much as possible. "You know, that's a good thing Alex," I said, laughing. "Because I brought an Apple!" Alex laughed out loud, and Isabel was nodding.

"Yeah, that's the ticket!" she agreed.

"Okay, if somebody doesn't explain what the hell is going on here, I'm going to get seriously pissed off," Rath said. He looked pretty pissed already, actually.

"Umm, well it's..." I broke off in mid-phrase, leaning forward to Alex. "Is it okay if I give him a..."

"Hints are fine, I think, at this point," Alex agreed quickly. I think he really didn't want Rath getting pissed off at *him*. "I think you'll know how far to take it."

Alright, hmm... "It's a party game, basically. The rule for what you can say doesn't have anything to do with a real trip... it's obvious once you think of it, though."

Rath looked at me, and his frustration melted through into simple sourness. "Wonderful for you, then. Since it looks like I've already lost, I'm not trying any more. Stupid game in the first place."

"Come on, that's quitter t..." Isabel started, but I jumped in and interrupted her before she finished the phrase - Rath would hold it against her too much, even incomplete. (Would have been better if I'd caught her at the q in 'quitter,' but what canya do?)

"Leave it alone, Isabel." If Rath had decided not to bother with the game, then none of us were going to accomplish anything helpful by trying to badger him into it. "How about we show 'em one of our old games, Rath?"

He smiled. "Okay. Would you rather... kiss Nicholas or spend three hours in the white room? Isabel?"

That hadn't been the diversion I had in mind, but Isabel only paled for a few seconds. "The room. Pierce may be scary, but he's not as gross as Nicholas." She considered. "Ava, would you rather kiss Nicholas - or what's left of the fake dead Alex that Rath made??"

"Eww!" That dead body was probably a mass of maggoty, festering slime out in the desert by now - and it had been roadkill in the first place. "Gimme a minute, that's a really tough call. I think Nicholas isn't quite as foul as THAT."

"That your final answer?" Isabel asked.

"Yeah. Okay, Alex, would you rather kiss your dead identical twin... or..." What the heck was I going to come up with that was even worse than Nicholas? "...Or sleepover with Tess for one weekend?"

"Hey, no fair bringing her into this," Alex complained... but I could hear the trace of laughter under his complaint, and knew that he wasn't really that upset.

And we drove on, dusty plains on either side of the highway.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

By the time we approached San Antonio, everyone was feeling the heat and the humidity... not inside Alex's car, so much, because it had air conditioning. But still, it wasn't hard to tell that things were getting muggy outside. We drove straight through SanAnton and pulled off for dinner in a steakhouse about thirty miles further on. Not everybody had steak, but it was a pretty nice supper - I had a small filet mignon, and enjoyed it quite a lot. I also managed to snag a seat next to Kyle again, without Rath crowding in on my other side, (or Kyle's other side for that matter,) like I was worried he would.

People got started on telling embarassing stories somehow - not quite sure how. Maria shared how some of the gang, (including Liz,) had caught her in a motel room with Michael, and in her shock at the locked door opening, she'd rolled off the bed - straight on top of Michael, who'd been sleeping on the floor. Kyle told me about how he'd followed Max and Liz on one of their early spying missions, back when he and Liz were still dating, and had mistakenly thought Liz might be giving Max a blowjob in the front seat of his Jeep. There were other good ones, too, ones that you probably don't know about even if you've been following the adventures of these guys regularly - when Max was around seven, some slightly savvier little boys had convinced him to go up to a girl in a higher grade and tell her 'Jimmy found your high-man. Do you want it back?' (He hadn't known what a hymen was at the time.)

We were all in high spirits by the time dessert was finished, and several of us didn't want to leave quickly, but Kyle and Michael pointed out that we really needed to get to Corpus Christi soon if we were going to make our reservation deadline at the Flophouse. (Yes, that's what the place was actually called, it was a kind of combination motel and hostel, very cheap, but they warned us that if we didn't arrive by eight our rooms might get given away.) So we headed back out to the cars, and this time, I was determined to not get seperated from Kyle again. We hadn't been able to talk very much during the meal, but I think I'd scored some decent eye contact, and the signs were looking favorable.

So when Rath headed back to Alex's car, I asked if anyone from the van wanted to switch with me, and after a second Max volunteered. Michael and Maria climbed into the front of the van, and Liz pulled me aside, her eyes twinkling a bit. "Do you want to sit next to me - or to Kyle??"

"Sheesh, does everybody think I've been throwing myself at him?" I muttered, a little embarassed.

"No - not quite." This came after one of those pensive 'Liz pauses.' "But it isn't too hard to see that you're both interested in each other." She giggled. "I do want some private time to catch up on the news, girlfriend, but for now go ahead and chase the boy - he's a good one to catch."

I smiled, more at the thought of catching up and talking a lot with Liz than doing anything with Kyle, actually. "Maybe we can room together once we get there, and talk all night - that is, if you think Isabel and Maria will be okay together."

"Should be," Liz said with an enigmatic look on her face. "And if not - maybe they can swap rooms so that they're with their honeys." I smiled, not having thought of that - we didn't really have chaperones or adult supervision on this trip, so probably a lot of sexy shenanigans would be going on. I climbed into the middle seat, and Liz got into the back again so that the free space for Kyle was next to me. He smiled as he got in and closed the sliding side door.

"So - together again," I whispered. "And no Rath to interrupt, even."

Kyle nodded. "Is there a particular reason he seems to get upset whenever he sees us together? I mean, does he think that I'm not good enough for you or something?" Pause. "Because, I mean, yes, I like you Ava, but I have to admit that I'm not wild about the idea of getting Rath mad at me."

I blinked - hadn't really thought of things in those terms. "Hmm... I suppose that that's possible - the overprotective judgemental thing, I mean. I guess I just put it down to Rath being Rath - a constant pain in the butt." But, well... Rath never used to show me that much affection, which possibly had to do with the way Lonnie looked down on me. Ever since we'd teamed up... I suppose it was possible that he saw me as a little sister - I'm not technically any younger than he is, but I'm certainly shorter and lighter. So did he think he had a say in who I got involved with?? Well, if so, he had another think coming, courtesy of me.

"Well, the point is, he isn't here," I reminded Kyle, and he laughed, seeing what I was getting at. "So - I think you've heard quite a bit about my story. What about you?"

"Ehh, I wouldn't be too sure about that first part," he said softly. "I've picked up some of the highlights, but there has to be more to you than that." I thought about that for a moment. "How about, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours?"

"Alright." So Kyle started at the beginning, some of his early clear memories - growing up in that little bungalow house in Roswell, his father a somewhat distant authority figure even before he became the sheriff - he'd been the chief deputy until Kyle was six years old or so. He'd very much preferred his mother, a friendly, emotionally free woman with a practical way of looking at the problems of growing up, and seemingly endless stores of patience. But maybe that equanimity had run out in the end, very abruptly, from the sudden way that his mother had disappeared on the two Valenti boys. All of a sudden, young Kyle's life had been thrown upside down as he and Jim tried to put their family together into a shape that would stay together without a woman in it. Jim had done well, I think, for a manly man who'd never expected to be raising his son so directly, or alone, but still there had been psychological traumas enough. A little while after covering the immediate consequences of the unilateral seperation, Kyle stayed silent for a few moments, and then asked if I'd like to take my turn.

So I did - I told him what I could remember of waking up in the tunnels and passages underneath Manhattan, of the first scary trips 'upperside' I'd taken with Zan, and the others, all four of us together. Later I'd gotten up the nerve to go alone. About Kam, the mysterious shapeshifting alien who had found us all not long after we'd emerged, and told us a few important things. For a while, he'd hung around in the vicinity, though he'd never lived in our 'lair' full-time. Seemed to know when we had questions, or needed some help, and would be around. But that didn't last for long - as suddenly as he had entered our life, Kam departed again, and we never knew what had happened to him - if he'd been captured or killed by somebody, or maybe had just gotten bored with us and decided to leave us alone.

"Okay, wait a second," Kyle muttered. "So this is *another* alien, one who might still be at large somewhere in... on Earth, at least?" Kyle asked.

"I... I'm not sure," I admitted. "He might be the same one as Nasedo, the one who stayed with Tess until she came to Roswell - none of us are quite sure where Ed Harding and Tess were when Kam was in Manhattan. Nobody asked her close enough questions while she was around. I've been over some of this stuff with Max and Michael - each of them have some sort of information about the aliens who were in the original Roswell crash - Max from stuff Pierce told him when he was in the White Room, and Michael from Hal Carver's story." Kyle looked a little blank and confused at the mention of Hal Carver. "He... Hal was an air force captain who got mixed up in the Roswell millitary cover-up, and went AWOL when he knew too much and might get iced next." Actually, is it still going AWOL if you sign honorable discharge papers first? Probably, but he was a fugutive from the air force because of slipping onto the base AFTER he was formally discharged.

"Well, the point is, the stories they were told don't seem to add up. So we're not sure if there were two shapeshifters running around, say, a year after the crash, or just one, or none. And around 1989, when we came out - there's way too many imponderables." I sighed. "I... I don't expect to ever see Kam again, though you never know, and if I do I'll have a lot of questions to ask him. But aside from that... I don't worry about him too much."

Kyle nodded. "So, you guys were, what, were around seven or eight years old in human terms then? And aside from one slightly more experienced alien, you didn't have anyone to teach you about earth or how to fit in?"

"Umm... well, kinda. Even by that time, we'd kinduv found and gotten to know some other homeless kids in the same area." I sighed. "None of them were quite as young as us - if you didn't count the years... well, never mind about that. They helped out a bit, and by the time we'd been out of the pods for about two and a half years Zan and Lonnie were playing them. Between our powers, and... well, we're all pretty smart, and most of us were sneaky and canny, and it didn't take long to learn to manipulate and dominate people. Of course, as we grew up, we started to get into situations that were out of our depth and getting into trouble."

Kyle nodded. "Okay, I think that's probably as much of the deep revelations as we need to get into for now." I smiled up at him, grateful that he'd picked up on how I was uncomfortable with sharing so much - though it had felt good to talk about it. Just at that point, it occured to me that we weren't really in a soundproof bubble in here... had Liz been listening to what I was saying? (Not that I minded so much about it - Liz had proven herself as a true friend, and I wanted her to know this kind of stuff. Somehow, it was easier to tell it to Kyle and not think about her listening than it would have been to tell it to her directly - or it seemed so anyway.) And then, Michael and Maria in the front seat - well, they seemed to be talking amongst themselves, so they probably hadn't heard what we were saying too well.

"Well then, what next?" I asked, and then thought of something. "Any idea how long to the beach?" The van was starting to feel very warm and sticky - it's air conditioner was nearly broke and didn't work too well.

"Maybe little more than half an hour," Michael answered. It was an odd way of talking for him, and I cocked my head, trying to figure out what was up with his voice. Imitating a stereotypical bad Mexican accent? No, that didn't seem like him, and it didn't quite fit anyway.

Maria was looking at him in quiet concentration too, for a minute, and then she snapped her fingers and her face brightened. "Princess Bride - when Inigo is explaining the situation to Westley. 'No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is marrying Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour...'" She had assumed the same accent, but more pronounced, and it didn't seem latin-american... maybe Castillian spanish. (She was really good at it.)

"Princess Bride?? Oh, right, that old fantasy movie?" I asked.

Kyle turned to me. "Have you never actually SEEN 'The princess bride'?" he asked, in what sounded like a tone of disbelief.

"Umm... no, not really. Didn't seem interesting. Swordfights and evil princes and beautiful princesses and pirates..."

"...and True Love," Liz broke in, with a soft laugh.

"You *have* to see it," Kyle said. "One of the best movies in earth history, I kid you not." He frowned in thought. "Dammit, there's no way we're going to have a VCR available at the flophouse - maybe it'll have to wait until we come back. Dammit, if I'd known, I'd have invited you over to my place last night. I've got the special edition DVD and everything!!"

Hmm... maybe I wished that he'd known yesterday. But then Maria suddenly chimed in, "Yeah, we can make it a party for the whole gang. It's been too long since I've seen the movie, actually. Does the DVD have any cool options on it, Kyle??"

"A few, but we're not going to talk about it any more," Kyle said, with a voice of quite definite finality. Michael looked back at him in the rear view mirror and Liz seemed quite surprised at his vehemence too. "If we talk about the Princess Bride in any capacity, for any length of time, then spoilers are going to come out, and I want Ava to come at it as fresh as possible, though I suspect that she's either heard some details or seen bits and snatches from how on-target her own dismissive summary was."

"Umm, okay, thanks I guess." I smiled again. "Well, if we've still got about half an hour until we get where we're going... why not talk about music?" Kyle considered that a moment, and grinned. "I suppose you have no appreciation for the greatness of punk, hmm??"

----------

Surely enough, it was about half an hour later when both of our cars passed the Corpus Christi city limits, and not long afterward that we pulled into the parking lot at the Sodding Flophouse. There was no possible argument over the fact that we had arrived on time, and the middle-aged woman who ran the place took half of our money upfront and gave out keys - three doubles and a triple. Maria and Isabel didn't mind rooming together, so that I could go with Liz - after a bit of confusion the boys decided that Alex and Michael would be together, (probably so that they could switch rooms with Maria/Isabel,) leaving Max, Kyle, and Rath in the big room. Oh boy.

We all unpacked the cars and loaded our stuff into our rooms about as quickly as possible, eager to get a look at the beach before going to bed. There wasn't much of it to see by the time we got there, because the twilight had mostly gone, but we were able to wander around a kind of carnival pier and hear the waves rolling in underneath. There were some games, and Michael won a big stuffed chicken on the test of strength, (you know, one of those deals where you hit a metal plate with a heavy hammer and try to ring a bell up at the top,) and gave it to Maria. Kyle and Rath were both talking about stripping down to their trunks and taking a night swim, but neither of them eventually went through with it, and we headed back to the hostel and... pretty much flopped. It had been quite a busy day, after all.

As I lay there, drifting off in the direction of sleep, Liz spoke up. "Ava... about all that stuff with how you guys basically grew up by yourselves... do you miss Zan and Lonnie?"

Only had to think about that one for a second. "Definitely for Zan, yeah." A ragged sob escaped my throat as I thought, one more time and involuntarily, of his motionless body out there in the street, and Lonnie pulling me away from the scene of the crime. "As far as Lonn... I dunno. She's the closest thing that I had to a sister, and yet... even before things really started to go wrong, I felt like there was something deep inside her heart that was as cold as ice. Of course, that wasn't all of her... she had fire, she had passion... but I'm not sure that she's ever felt COMpassion, if you'll excuse the play on words. She had the hots for Rath, and felt some kind of twisted sisterly love for Zan, especially before the end when she'd decided that he was in the way of her ticket home. But... but as much as I feel the fact that she's not around, and get reminded of her pretty much every day... I still wouldn't have her near if I had the choice, you know?"

Liz sighed. "I... I'm not sure that I do, that I can. I mean, there's Tess - I was starting to get used to her, to think of her as one of the group, and now I couldn't be more pleased that she's several hundred light years away." I laughed a little, my sarcastic bone tickled by the way apple-sweet Liz Parker had put that. "But... but I guess I'm not as used to her as you were to Lonnie... I *don't* think about her every day, and when I do often it's just relief that she's gone." She sighed. "Maybe we should just count our blessings, huh?"

"Wouldn't be the worst idea I ever heard," I said, the words starting to slur and stretch from the lazy feeling that was surrounding me. "But don't count too loudly - I want to get some sleep tonight."

Liz laughed, and took it as a hint to shut completely up. Which wasn't quite what I had meant, but... well, no harm done, certainly. We could talk again some other time.

-----------

Woke up early the next morning, and took the opportunity to explore the flophouse a little more. The rooms were very basic - ours had two little twin beds with a pillow on each, (no blankets or other coverings in evidence, not that anybody would want them in the hot weather.) One big dresser with seperate shelves side by side, split down the middle into left and right, which was presumably to make it easier for two residents to share the space. A very small, round mirror on the wall, a fairly small window, which had been open when we first came in and left open for the faint breeze it gave off... err, let in, I suppose I should say. One empty bookcase. Light switch controlling a ceiling fixture, one of whose two bulbs was burnt out and the other (unshielded,) was bright enough to hurt if you stared up at it. I didn't turn the light on in the morning, but I remembered that from last night. And that was pretty much it. No adjoining bathroom of course - we knew that we'd have to share with other guests. No adjoining closet even, which was a surprise, but I supposed I'd be able to get by. I did wonder if there were shared closets that were available.

Aside from the dozen bedrooms, one of which was apparently the proprietors', there were three bathrooms that I could find with a little exploring, yes, two closets, (one of which was a fairly big walk-in,) the little check-in reception office at the front of the building, a kitchen with a big long kitchen table in it, and a 'parlour' with shelves full of comic books, sci-fi paperbacks and board games, along with a tiny little rabbit ears TV. (As Kyle had predicted, no VCR or DVD player.) A few picnic tables were sitting on the gray tile patio in the back yard, presumably meant to be overflow from the kitchen table, or maybe just a place to sit and talk if there was a good breeze going.

By the time I'd done this much exploring, it was late enough that I decided to head back upstairs and try to slip into one of the bathrooms before they were all full. That worked, pretty much, though there wasn't a lock on the bathroom door and some girl from Oklahoma came in and used the can while I was in the shower. Wasn't too bad, though I'd have been a lot less happy if she'd still been there when I was ready to get OUT of the shower - she wasn't. Then breakfast down in the kitchen... apparently, we were going to have to pay extra for meal privileges when we checked out, but there was a convenience to it - and heck, we'd have to pay to eat anywhere else too, maybe more. That kitchen table grew more and more crowded as people woke up and made it through the bathroom blitz - I think a few of the other guests had opted out of the flophouse breakfast rights, but not many. I talked with a few of the others - mostly pretty much like us, kids who had come down to the beach for a short end-of-summer vacation trip. There were young people there from all over the area - we weren't the only ones to come from New Mexico, also Texans, Oklahomans, whatever the hell you're supposed to call people from Arkansas, Kansanians, and two Mexicans, which kind of surprised me - there was plenty of beach down in Mexico, wasn't there? But they seemed like a pretty well-to-do couple, so maybe they came to the states for vacation just because they could afford to. I don't know.

After I'd finished with breakfast, I met with some of the other Roswellians out on the patio - Liz, Max, Michael, Alex, and Isabel. (The others were all awake, but they'd started their breakfast much later than us and were still in the middle of it.) Everybody sounded really eager to get down to the beach as soon as possible, so Max suggested that some of us could head down there in the van, leaving the rest to take Alex's car. The Flophouse was too far from the beach to be a short and comfortable walk, which was probably part of the reason why it was so cheap, (aside from the obvious.)

"So, who's going to stay behind?" Isabel asked, looping Alex's arm around hers.

"It doesn't have to be five and four, now that the cars are unpacked," Michael pointed out. "The van can seat six without all of that luggage crammed into the back seat." He considered. "On the other hand, I could wait around and go with Maria - that makes a certain amount of sense."

I thought about that sort of thing too, about waiting to ride down with Kyle... and Rath - and decided that I wouldn't bother. (Especially because if Michael was doing the same thing, Alex's little sedan would be very crowded, even now that it was unpacked.) "Alright... what about swimsuits? Should we get changed now?"

"Umm... probably yeah," Liz agreed. "I'm going to take a little bag with some coverup stuff just in case - as well as a towel and other essentials. But yeah, we can ride down in our suits." So, back upstairs, and Liz smiled gently at me as we got into the room. "Do you want to go in by yourself and get changed first, or is it okay if we're in there, umm..." She blushed. "I don't know why it seems so weird - we got changed for bed last night at about the same time, but..."

"Yeah, it's okay," I assured her. "No sense wasting time in dancing around it." But somehow, whether just because it was swimsuits we were changing into, or because Liz had called attention to it, things were slightly different while we were stripping out of our street clothes, and I couldn't help but steal quick glimpses at Liz out of the corner of my eye, or through that tiny little mirror. She's definitely a hottie... slender, but with subtle womanly curves in all the right places.. and damn, I'd love to have legs like hers! Obviously, her beautiful heart and soul aren't the only things that Max loves about her.

Then I started to imagine that Liz was sneaking peeks at me too. Kinduv gave me a weird feeling, but not an entirely unpleasant one. Then we were both dressed and packing our beach bags - I'd settled daringly on the black bikini for today, and Liz was wearing a red tank suit that actually wouldn't have been too out of place on 'Baywatch.' I hurried down, wondering if I could get to watch Alex's face when he got his first look at Isabel in her bikini. (Well, probably not the first time he'd ever seen her in a bikini, though you never know... but the first time today at least.)

I didn't quite make it in time - Isabel, Alex, and Kyle were waiting at the downstairs landing, Kyle was wearing loose jeans and a t-shirt, obviously he'd just finished his breakfast - probably was heading upstairs to change until he ran into Isabel and got his eyes snagged by her prominent attributes. And yes, Alex had a pretty goofy look on his face too. "Hi guys!" I exclaimed, taking the last two steps in a single bound and rushing up to them. Kyle looked up when I called and did a pretty satisfying double-take at my own bikini beauty. "So, how soon are you going to be joining us down at the beach?" I asked Kyle in a softly teasing voice, (at least, that was the effect I was going for - a nervous twitch in my throat kind of made 'beach' squeak in a way I didn't like, but oh well.)

"Umm... just as soon as I can!" he said, then drew in a breath quickly. "I... I don't suppose I could persuade you to wait for the second car, and ride with me?"

I grinned at the thought. "Maybe. If Michael agrees to go on ahead - I mean, if there's five of us in the little car, it could get crowded."

"Well, umm, there's no particular reason that the van has to go first, if there aren't enough people to fill it up," Alex pointed out, and I nearly slapped my forehead in frustration for having missed that one. "Isabel and I, Max and Liz can come in the sedan, and then everybody else follow in the van."

I looked from Alex to Isabel, and then to Kyle. "Umm... sounds like a plan to me!"

----------

The beach was hot and damn crowded.

Lots of people, a surprising number of whom frankly didn't look like they should be allowed to wear swimsuits in public, ever. (Okay, I know that's mean, and I'll take it back.) The nine of us were able to find some spaces to spread out our towels, but only just, and not all together. I wanted to go into the water as soon as possible, and headed out across the beach, resisting the urge to hop through the hot sand, avoiding trash, ugly seaweed, and what looked like a few beached jellyfish. Kyle was walking next to me - and let me say, that boy looks REALLY good in nothing but a pair of jams. Nice physical definition on the chest, strong touchable legs... excuse me while I wipe away a little drool, just remembering. How had no other girl in Roswell gotten him off the market yet, heheh?

Oooh... that was an unpleasant thought, actually. Kyle had a reputation as a bit of a player, as far as I could find out. Eager to flirt and more with any pretty girl that crosses his path, but not looking for a permanent thing. Did that kind of thing apply to whatever he felt for me, too?? I had nothing against brief flings, but somehow I was looking for something a bit deeper right at this point in my life, and the thought that Kyle might not return that urge was upsetting. Oh well. I looked back, to see if Liz was coming out for a swim too, but no - when I finally found her, she was stretched out on her blanket, her bare legs glinting slightly with suntan oil... and her lips passionately locked with Max's. Okay, she's not going to be getting her hair wet for a LONG time. Michael and Maria were approaching from the other group of blankets though.

The water was a little warm, but definitely cooler than the sand, and felt a little weird as the gentle waves lapped against my calves - maybe that's because it's salty, basically ocean water. Still I just kept rushing in, loving the feel of the fluid surrounding me, until it was up to my shoulders, and then I was floating, my feet not quite able to touch the ground. There was a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around, and it was Kyle there, stretching an arm out ready to wrap it around my shoulders and pull me close. He waited, though, for just a second until he saw me smile. Then my chest was pressed up against him, a remarkably stimulating feeling just in itself, and his lips came close, touching mine quite softly to begin with. All of the trepidations that I'd been feeling earlier seemed to melt away, and I felt my hands come around and touch his back under the water, deepening the kiss at the same time. Everything went crazy all at once in the best possible way - I've never experienced a kiss like that before, even with Zan, who was the best kisser I knew of before I came to Roswell. (Not the only guy I've ever kissed, or the only person for that matter - do NOT ask me to explain further about that...)

For a long moment I seriously thought that a storm had hit over the water and that the giant waves throwing us up and down, together, were very real. Hot surges of energy like lightning strikes passed through my body, starting anywhere that my skin was touching his, and my heart was beating as loud as thunderclaps. But then the sensations faded for a second, and I could tell that we were just there in the water, and it was as calm as you could possibly imagine. Kyle wasn't even floating - he was still standing on the bottom, even though I couldn't quite reach it. I squeezed my lips against his even harder and gently fondled his mouth with the tip of my tongue.

Somewhere between a minute and an hour later, (well, probably not literally close to an hour, though it nearly felt like it,) the kiss discovered its time to die away, and Kyle looked deep into my eyes. The two of us were still wrapped up in each other's arms. "Ava... you're one heck of a woman," he breathed in wonder. "I... I never thought that I could... could fall for this face all over again, after I found out how badly Tess had used me."

"I... I don't think she meant to manipulate you particularly," I whispered, though I wasn't sure why I was arguing my evil twin's case. "She really did care for you - I absolutely believe that. The only times she mixed you up in her treacherous schemes were when she had absolutely no other choice."

"Still..." Kyle muttered, and reached a hand up to gently touch the side of my face. Two of his wet fingers brushed against my golden hair, most of which still wasn't wet - I hadn't had time to duck my head under water before Kyle kissed me, and after it didn't seem like a good time to. The drops of salty water ran slowly down my cheek and against the strands that they touched. "You... you should pick a last name, Ava. It... it seems weird to talk to you without one. I... I like to call a girl by her full name sometimes, when the moment is right, and you really don't have any fuller of a name than we use every day, do you?"

"Hmm... no, I guess I don't," I admitted. There had never seemed to be any particularly good reason to assume more of a name than I'd taken from my past self... of course, the original Ava, back on Antar, had had titles and honorifics coming out of her ass, (or something like that,) but they didn't really apply to her. Should I take her family name, whatever that had been, and convert that to the nearest Earth equivalent? Or maybe, was this a chance to break away from the shadow of an alien past and pick a surname that was meaningful to me, to Ava from New York, currently living in Roswell... something that didn't apply at all to the person I used to be, and probably would never be again? "Well, I'll have to think about that I guess."

"Alright." Kyle smiled. "So, umm..."

"Just a second... being held by you like this is nice," I admitted, "but could you let me loose for just a moment? There's something I really want to do." Shrugging slightly, Kyle disengaged from the embrace, and I let go too, treading out to sea a few feet further, let out as big a breath as I could, brought my arms and legs down and together, my entire body straight as a stick. Gravity asserted itself and pulled me under the surface, but not too far, because even without air in my lungs my body was slightly lighter than the sea water, and I started to bob back up again after a moment. Just before the top of my head would break the water, (as nearly as I could determine it,) I started kicking with my feet and pushing with my hands, so that the top of my down to the shoulders launched out of the ocean, and I shook my wet head back and forth as vigorously as I could. Once my eyes were free of water enough to see well, I could tell that I'd managed to shoot an impressive amount of ocean spray right into Kyle's face, probably streaming off the flying locks of my hair, and I giggled at the expression on his face as he spluttered and spit a little. "Okay, that worked."

"Yes, indeed," Kyle muttered in a dry, almost-British accent. "So, how did you learn to swim, Ava? You seem to be pretty decent at it, and I don't think a childhood in the sewers of New York would lend itself to picking up that skill. Not unless you, umm... swam around literally in the..."

"In the shit?" I finished for him. "No, we didn't spend that much time in the sewer tunnels, never the really big and deep ones, and I don't think I ever swam while I was still in New York." I sighed, and swam a little closer to Kyle again, not reaching out to touch him again, just enjoying the closeness. "But... well, not long after I left Roswell last November, I stayed for a few weeks in a town in Colorado, and got a job as a lifeguard for an indoor country club pool there. Figured that as a lifeguard, I should at least try to learn to swim, so I managed to pick up the basics, mostly after hours when nobody else was in the building."

"Ahh," Kyle said, smiling an odd grin to himself.

"What's that smile for?"

"Ohh... just wondering if they hired you the way you looked when you left Roswell... silver-pink-and-purple hair, piercings, heavy maskaara, leather miniskirt and all."

I laughed. "No, actually, I ditched my punk glory just about as soon as I left town... in case Lonnie and Rath did try to track me down for payback, I knew that sticking out like a sore thumb in the southwest would just mean an easier trail for them to follow. I looked pretty much like I do now... except that the bathing suit I wore there wasn't a bikini." Soft laugh. "I would have changed the hair and so on before I left, but figured that there was no harm in letting Liz remember me the way I had been... just in case they came back and asked her about me."

"Okay, makes sense," Kyle admitted. "I have to admit, I kind of prefer you without the piercings and the technicolor hair... though a leather miniskirt is rarely a bad look for a girl with the figure to pull it off, which you do."

I laughed, and reached out to touch his hand with my fingers for a second. "Well, I've still got one - even brought it to Texas with us, so you might get to see it. On the other hand, whether you'd get to 'pull it off' me is a little more doubtful." Kyle blinked a little, then grinned at my sexual play on words, even though it had been phrased as a coy evasion rather than an invitation.

"Hey." He pointed out to sea, and maybe a quarter of a mile out, I could just make out a reef or rocky outcropping. Some human figure dived off it back into the water. "Race you out there??"

"Umm... I'm not sure. I'm willing to try swimming that far - but, what if there's a rip tide or something?"

"I don't think a rip is anything to worry about as long as you keep your head," Kyle said. "But if it makes you feel better, I'll stick close."

I had to laugh at that. "Cool."

----------

Well, we got out to the reef, and both jumped or dived off it a few times, and played around in the shallow water nearer the shore for a little while, and then I was tired of being wet and decided to come back out. Liz had stopped making out with Max - she and Isabel were suntanning together, while the guys were off playing tag football or something. So I went up and got myself well covered with smooth suntan oil, too. Kyle hung around for a bit watching before Isabel chased him away, saying that the three of us needed a little girl time alone.

We didn't talk about anything much at first. I was happy enough to just stretch out and let the sun's warm radiance lull me into a snooze. A little while later, Maria showed up, coming back from the water and from spending a little time broswing up on the pier, and took a spot between Liz and I. I was reminded to flip over onto my back at this point, and Maria rattled on and on about Michael for quite a while, which got Isabel started raving about Alex.

I sighed softly - had only meant it as an exclamation of pleasure of the sun and the companionship, not any sign of impatience about all the boyfriend talk, but Liz giggled slightly and said, "Okay, I think it's your turn now Ava. Just between us girls. You and Kyle - spill. We want details."

"Umm... I'm not sure what to say," I admitted. "I definitely like him... we've been talking and flirting a bit, since before we left Roswell even. And... and out in the water we just kissed."

"Kissed, how?" Maria asked. "Like, just a little peck on the lips, or major making out??"

"Ummm... maybe a five point nine on the makeout Richter scale," I joked. "The first time - oh man, there was nothing little about it. I thought that a thunderstorm had rolled in over the water, for an instant." Isabel sighed with appreciation, either at my metaphor or the sort of passion it spoke of. "And we kinduv necked for a few minutes just before coming in."

"Alright, fair enough," Liz agreed. "Nothing further to report?"

"Umm... not for the moment." I took a moment, then a deep breath. "Liz... well, you know Kyle, and you've dated him before. Is it possible that he's playing me? Just... you know, out for a few cheap thrills, and then it'll be goodbye?"

"Hmm..." Liz thought about this seriously, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her sitting up to smear on a little more sun cream, maybe just because she needed to do something physical at that moment. "I suppose it's possible... there's that side to Kyle Valenti, but also much deeper layers, and I supposed if you want to get through to those deeper layers I might be able to come up with some pointers, and some signs that indicate when you're making progress." Another pause. "One good indicator, already... well, I can't help but think that considering how he felt about Tess, he wouldn't get involved with someone else so similiar to her for just a casual fling."

"Oh, okay."

"Unless..." Isabel muttered, and then didn't follow that up until Maria repeatedly nudged her. "Well... I hate to say this, but is it possible that Kyle would subconsciously try to hurt Ava because he doesn't have any other way to deal with his anger about Tess??"

"Ooooh," Maria exclaimed, surprised at the notion.

"I... I don't think he's capable of that sort of thing," Liz insisted. "Even his subconscious mind, or part of it, has to know that Ava and Tess aren't the same person. They don't share karma, and it's just not in him to deliberately break somebody's heart."

"Are... are you so sure about that, Liz?" I said softly. "Or just saying it because you don't want it to be true??"

She hesitated, and then all of a sudden in the silence we could hear noises coming from a little distance away - voices, the softer sound of bodies in motion and possibly in contact. Maria hesitated only a moment before launching herself up off the towel and towards the disturbance, which was off in the other direction from the ocean shore. The rest of us followed her as closely as we could, and it was clear that the problem had started amidst the football game the guys were in the middle of. Michael's voice was one of the ones that had been raised, which was probably why Maria had reacted like that.

It caused quite a few hoots and catcalls from the guys around the edge of the impromptu football field when four pretty girls, nearly dripping with suntan oil, (three dressed in bikinis and one in a red speedo tank,) ran up to see what all of the fuss was about, even though there had been the regular collection of attractive summer girls watching the match already. None of us worried about the whistles, though, when we noticed the epicenter of the ruckus - Kyle and Rath, Max, and Michael were all lying, kneeling, or squatting on the ground, (more or less, the individual positions were changing moment by moment,) in an energetic and somewhat violent tangle.

As I watched, it became clear that Rath and Kyle were out for each other's blood - probably none that the other absolutely couldn't spare, but still, they were pissed - Rath using all the New York streetfighting tricks that he knew, and Kyle holding his own pretty well with a mix of amateur wrestling holds, some very basic tai kwan do, and good ol-fashioned football team horseplay. Max and Michael were trying to get them seperated, and not having that much luck at the moment.

As this passed through my mind, it immediately resulted in a vocal output. "Rath - what the hell did you do?" Both of them stopped in mid-fight and looked up at me, Rath with an extremely frustrated look on his face, Kyle slightly aggrieved and at the same time triumphant... as if my blaming the whole deal on Rath had given him more triumph than if he'd kicked Rath's ass. So, I adjusted my stance slightly. "Does *somebody* want to tell me what's going on here?"

None of our guys said anything as they got up. I wondered for a moment what had happened to Alex. Maybe he had wandered off to gaze into the ocean or something - he didn't really seem like the sportsy type. (Max isn't that much sportier, but he is a little closer to the typical 'football player' look, so I dunno.) One of the bystanders enthusiastically started relating the events, though. "Well, it was just a relatively ordinary outward hook pass, when the guy in the black wifebeater," (that was Rath,) "tackled my boy like it was the Super bowl. I mean, he ran into him like he was a train engine." I figured out, after a few seconds, that 'my boy' was Kyle, presumably because he was on the same team as the dude who was speaking. Had he been the quarterback who threw the pass to Kyle, maybe? "I half expected that we'd need people to carry him off the field, but no - bam, up he comes, right in BlackBeater's face, and they yell at each other about whether it was or wasn't an accident for maybe half a minute before words aren't enough anymore and they start brawling. The other two came up as quickly as they could to stop them... but I guess a bikini works better at that." I blushed slightly.

"Okay, well, we'd better leave the field of play - ALL of us," Maria said, a little ominously. I think Michael was about to complain, for a second, that he hadn't done anything wrong and he wanted to stick with the game - but arguing with Maria right then must not have looked like a good idea. I went over to Kyle. "Are you alright??"

He had a nasty scratch down the right side of his face and was moving his left shoulder gingerly, as if it was sore, but I didn't think it was dislocated or anything. "Yeah, I'll be okay, but I wouldn't mind a hand over to the beach." Smiling, I walked beside him, keeping my left arm out so that he could put some eight on it using his right hand. Max and Isabel had crwded around Rath, but I didn't pay him any attention until Kyle was sitting down on the oceanward end of my beach towel.

"Damn, Valenti, when someone really pisses you off, you don't mess around," Michael said in a low whisper.

"Umm... what?" Kyle looked over at him, a little bit nervous and worried. "I... I don't even remember what happened... I just... I was so mad at him for pulling that stunt that I couldn't see straight, and he was acting like he had hardly done anything important wrong and... and next thing I really remember is Ava yelling." He took a deep breath. "Is Rath going to be okay?"

"From what I can tell - probably," Michael muttered. "Especially if Max gets a chance to patch him up without anyone else noticing how badly he was hurt. But you cracked two of his ribs and pulled a ligament in his leg."

"Hey, the ligament he might've done to himself," Kyle argued, "either in the fight or when he bulldozed me." Michael shrugged, not arguing the point.

"What... what was it like?" I asked Kyle. "I... I mean, Rath knows that you're a football player and been tackled before. Admittedly, you weren't in your padding and uniform this time, but..."

"It's not just that," Kyle argued softly. "Usually, tacking someone, you're just trying to stop them as quickly and effectively as possible. But, I swear that Rath was *trying* to hurt me. He hit me just about as hard as he could, and then tried to yank my shoulders down so that I'd hit the ground head first. Even though I've practiced taking falls, I still did hit my head pretty hard - though not as hard as I think he wanted."

"Maybe Max should take a look at you too, after he's done with Rath," I said softly. I certainly couldn't blame Kyle for being angry, for giving Rath a little back, after a provocation like that. Rath might even respect him a little more for the broken bones... though I wasn't sure it would help. But I was more worried about what made Rath so angry at Kyle in the first place.

He'd been pissy or ill-tempered ever since the trip started, I realized. And... and the things that seemed to get him the meanest, I suddenly realized, were when I was talking to Kyle, or someone else mentioned the two of us together, like Isabel had in the car. Had... had he seen the two of us kissing in the ocean?

And, like another metaphorical flash of lightning, the rest of it hit me. This didn't have anything to do with Rath being protective or just thinking Kyle wasn't good enough for me in a big-brother kind of role. The only thing that would get Rath *this* fired up... was if he saw Kyle as the competition. He must have had a thing for me too, and I'd never noticed. Until I started flirting with another guy, and...

Oh, boy. This changed everything. Kyle was cool, and I really did like him, but did I want to keep pursuing him even knowing that it was pissing Rath off this much? Rath had been one of the people I'd been closest to forever and ever... and I wasn't sure how to react to the idea that he wanted to get wit' me, or whatever. (Definitely I wouldn't hook up, as long as he was only willing to show his feelings by beating up other guys, but things might not stay that way long now.)

Great. A classic summer love triangle. The beach beauty has two guys both falling all over her - the sweet, relatively clean-cut jock, and the 'bad boy' that she has tons and tons of history with. What the hell do I do now??

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

I didn't feel like sticking around for long - like spending any more time around either Rath *or* Kyle once I realized that I had a love triangle on my hands. After staying at the beach long enough to reassure myself that they were both, indeed, going to be fine, I grabbed my bag and headed off. I didn't have any particular destination to move towards, I just started walking away from the water and towards what looked like more traditional city buildings. After about a minute I rooted around in the bag, came up with a big button-down shirt that I'd bought in a 'tall guy's' store in Roswell, and put it on as a cover-up over my bikini. It was long enough to fit on me like a short dress, which was pretty much the idea.

Vague thoughts swirled around me as I passed a row of storefronts obviously dedicated to servicing the beach crowd - sunglass & souvenir store, burgers and fries grille, ice cream shoppe. And then, through the sparse crowd, I caught sight of a familiar, lanky figure with ears that stuck out slightly further than his dark hair. "Alex!" He grinned at me, in the middle of sucking one of those plastic slushie tubes. "Have you been wandering around here the whole time! You missed a brawl on the football field."

Alex took the cut edges of the tube out of his mouth. "Umm... doesn't surprise me that much - which was why I took off," he admitted. "Were any of our friends hurt??"

"It was our friends who started it," I said. "And, possibly, over me. Nobody else was involved... just Kyle and Rath scrapping it out, and Max and Michael trying to split them up." Alex's eyes widened, and I took him by the hand and softly explained the whole deal, while continuing to move further away from the beach.

"W-wow," he admitted. "That's really bad, the whole dirty fighting thing. Wish I'd been smart enough to figure out that this was coming in time to warn you." I looked up at him when he said that. "Well... in retrospect, it's kind of obvious... that Rath liked you too, and was getting upset by the fact that you only had eyes for Kyle. And when Rath gets upset... yeah, somebody's liable to get hurt."

"That boy needs to learn some restraint," I said firmly. "I don't care what he feels for me, there's no excuse for this kind of behavior."

"No, it isn't," Alex agreed. "But neither of us really want him to change that much - if he did, he wouldn't be the rough 'n' tough guy that we both know and love." I looked up at him. "In a strictly friendly and platonic way, in my case, of course... you have to decide if the same caveats apply to yerself." I broke out laughing. "But seriously... I'm right, aren't I? I wouldn't want him to be anything other than the sunnuvabitch that he is. Maria feels kind of the same way about Michael, though she doesn't really realize it most of the time."

"Yeah, you have a point," Ava agreed. "But like Michael - Rath is capable of behaving in a more... more civilized and decent way than he sometimes chooses to. That's not about who he is, deep down... just the fact that he acts like somebody that he really isn't."

"Like he's really the male counterpart to Lonnie, maybe?" Alex asked. I had to think about that for a long moment.

"I... I'm not sure about that. Lonnie - I think that Lonnie isn't as bad deep down as she acts, either... though she's a lot closer. She probably wouldn't have tried to take Max's message to Michael and Isabel so readily if she were... and it wasn't her fault that they weren't reachable. But, yeah, I think that Rath got so used to acting as hardcore as she was, just because he thought that they'd be tight forever, that he's still pulling this kind of shit without thinking about it." Considered that. "Which suggests, just maybe, that letting him know it's not gonna cut any ice with me, whether or not we hook up now or not, might have a good effect on him, as long as he's capable of breaking those bad habits."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Alex said with a smile. "So, do you want to head back now?"

"Nah, let's explore town a bit." And I led him down a side street. We wandered for a while, just talking about the little things that had made up our summers since... well, since Isabel came back to Roswell more or less, which is when we stopped spending a lot of time together, for fairly obvious reasons. After maybe twenty minutes Isabel herself caught up with us - she teased me about keeping Alex all to myself and dropped enough clues that I realized she'd been chasing after him for a while - maybe homing in on his mind with her alien powers or something like that. So I couldn't really complain that she wanted to join in, and she was actually pretty good at making me not feel like a third wheel and keeping the conversation inclusive. We stopped at a 'Lone Star fried chicken' place and had some lunch, and hung around chatting long after the food was done, just enjoying spending time together.

"So, well, we're gonna have to leave here eventually," Isabel said around one thirty. "Whatcha think, back to the beach?"

"Hmm... back to the waterfront yeah, but maybe not that beach," Alex said, looking into my face for my reaction. Maybe he still thought I wanted to avoid Kyle and Rath. "I saw a place where you could rent motorboats - and paragliding gear, or waterskis, that kind of thing."

"Can you waterski on the ocean? I thought that was more a lakefront cottage kind of thing," Isabel said.

"I think you can, though it's a little tougher with ocean waves," I put in. "Probably not reccomended for first timers." I stretched slightly. "But, actually... I want to try to find some of the others. Do you think everybody else is still back at the beach, Izzie?"

She looked at me closely, and I wondered if she had any notion what was in my mind. "Well, I think Kyle, Michael, and Maria were going to stay at the beach, and Max and Liz were going to take Rath back to the flophouse... not sure if the dream couple expected to stay there or just deliver him and then head off elsewhere."

Oh, boy. So if I wanted to go see Rath, (a) it would probably be very obvious that that was what I had in mind, and (b) I'd probably need wheels, which would mean leaving everybody back at the beach without a ride home. Boy. When we got up to go, I still wasn't quite sure what to do, though from the way Alex caught my eye I think he knew what was running through my mind. A tall boy intercepted us on our way out the door and pressed brightly colored flyers into all our hands. "You've gotta come - it's going to be epic!!"

"What's going to be epic?" Isabel muttered in irritation. All of the flyers turned out to have the same text, despite the different colors - telling us thar the Alamo nightclub was holding an end-of-summer Bye-bye bash all weekend. Eighteen and over all welcome, big fun, and so on and so forth. Isabel looked up to Alex, over to me, and then back down to the purple flyer in her hands for a moment. "Has potential, hmmm?"

My stomach twitched slightly. "Hmm... I didn't really bring clothes for going out clubbing." Actually, I didn't really even have clubbing clothes back in Roswell.

Iz grinned. "You can leave that to me. Come on." She led the way out of the chicken hut.

"Well, maybe," I muttered as a way to change the subject. "So, umm..."

"Hey, number nine bus!" Alex exclaimed, and both of us turned to look at him. He pointed out the bus as it rushed past us on the street. "Sorry, I just noticed that number this morning, when we were getting ready to leave. I wonder if it runs straight from the flophouse to the beach - and vice versa."

I smiled. Thank you, Alex! "Well, I think I'll volunteer to find out... that one was heading back towards the beach, yeah?" Alex nodded. "So, if it comes back the same way in a few minutes, it'll probably stop... there." I pointed to a cross street not far away, and sure enough there was an oddly designed post that looked like it was most likely a bus stop marker. "Just want to go back to my rented bed and see if I can catc some more sleep in the heat of the afternoon, huh?"

"Um, okay," Isabel said after a split second, as I led the way towards my bus stop. "If for some reason you leave again, write a note or something kay? Just so that I don't need to worry that you got lost or kidnapped or something."

I giggled. "Don't worry, nobody will bother abducting me. See ya around dinner time probably?"

Isabel looked at Alex, and he pointed behind her - the number nine was on its way back already! "Probably, yeah, but don't freak out if we stay out beachside into the evening. Not sure of anybody else's plans."

"Gotit," I agreed, and rooted around in my bag for some bus fare. Ahh... two dollar bills, a quarter, and three dimes. That should be enough, right?

It was only one ninety-five cash fare, and I wondered as I sat next to a little old lady just how many people paid two bucks because they didn't have the correct chane. Busing back home through an unfamiliar city was a bit nerve-wracking, but I managed to spot a seven-eleven that we'd passed on the way out to the beach in the morning, and then saw the sign for the flophouse itself. Alex was right - this bus route was a very convenient way of getting back and forth to the neighborhood of the beach. I got off the bus, said hi to the housemum, who was sitting at the reception desk playing an odd kind of solitaire, and went up to Rath's room first thing.

He was lying flat on his back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Hey babe," he said softly, without looking in my direction as far as I could tell. "Come by to keep me company and give up a little sympathy?"

"Not yet by a long shot," I growled softly. "Rath, you don't deserve sympathy at all - Kyle might have won that fight, but YOU started it."

"Won it? Just because he broke a few bones?" Rath scoffed. "The fight ended because you called it off, sugar, and that means it's a draw. If not, the pretty-boy jock would have had a lot more hurt than this comi--"

"...and that's completely beside the point," I interrupted, otherwise Rath's face-saving machismo could have gone on for a half an hour easily. "Bottom line, homeboy - are you jealous of Kyle? Is that why you tried to take him down on the field?"

"I didn--" Rath stopped his denial midway, probably because he could tell that I wasn't going to buy it. "Al - alright, yeah, I guess I was. I... I never said anything to you, but I thought that we'd been getting closer, ever since we met up back in Ohio. Seemed to me like that was leading somewhere, until you went and got stars in your eyes over the Buddhist disciple."

"Alright, thanks for being so honest with me," I told him. "Now here's something equally honest - you're not going to get anywhere with me acting like this. Not by acting all sullen and antisocial because I'm talking to someone else, not by attacking another guy and trying to make it look like football field hijinks... actually, not by attacking other guys I like no matter what you make it look like, really. And even constantly making snide wisecracks isn't terribly attractive on you."

There was a long silent moment as Rath absorbed all of this. I could see a little of what he was feeling on his face. He could tell that I was pretty angry, was embarassed a little at getting dressed down... but he was also very aware of the things I could have told him and didn't, like 'never' and 'you're not my type.' "Okay... noted. Though that stuff did get your attention, didn't it?"

"Yeah... but getting my attention can be a double-sided thing," I pointed out, smiling nastily as best I could... and Rath probably knew better than anyone else what my nasty streak was like when I really let it out. "So behave!" Rath chuckled at that, and somehow I knew that I'd handled the situation okay.

"So... what'd you do after leaving the beach? It's been a while since I got back here, yeah?" Rath has a very well developed time sense - something that he usually pretends is part of his warrior heritage.

"Umm... I'm not sure exactly when you got here, but yeah, it was a while since I last saw you. I went off looking for Alex - I found him, and then Isabel found both of us." I told him a little of what had happened, at lunch, and mentioning the nightclub flyers that we'd got. Mine was now folded up in my bag, so I took it out and handed it to him.

"Hmm... wouldn't suck to check it out. Find out if these Texas fools have any clue how to par-taay," Rath drawled, and I chuckled.

"Do you actually have to lay there flat on your back without looking at me, by the way, or is it just that you feel you have nothing better to do?"

Surprised, Rath twisted his neck to shift me into his field of vision, and then sat up slightly. "Neither, I guess. It was just fairly comfortable. I'm not sure that Max was able to do a full job on me, out there on the beach."

"Hmm." I considered that. "Did you tell him so? Liz said he did good work on her - and if it was a question of the confusion or worrying about being spotted in the middle of something weird, he could have tried again here, in relative privacy."

"Ehh, didn't want to be any more of a drag on him," Rath admitted. "Could tell that he wanted some alone time with the little lady."

"Ahh, right." I sighed. "So do you think you'll be able to hit the nightclub tonight, then? Without Max's help, I mean."

"Actually, yeah. I just realized that I'm feeling a lot better than I knew I was." And he suddenly cocked his head. "What *is* that?"

I listened, a little puzzled, and heard what he was talking about. At first it seemed just a buzz like a big black fly was caught in the room. And then, it sounded more like talking - like someone talking a fairly long way away... and not just talking faintly, but... but in another language!

"The comm badge," Rath exclaimed about half a second before I could jump to that conclusion myself. Someone from another planet was trying to talk to us again.

I jumped up to find it, with Rath sitting up and giving directions, though he didn't actually look himself. It was right where he said it would be, in Max's bookbag, and I looked at it in confusion as it squawked away, sounding like a crystal radio with a bad case of static. "Is the translation circuit on the fritz, or is it something else?" I asked, more to myself than anyone else.

"Well, Michael was here the last time we tried," Rath pointed out, "and he lived for days on that little colony planet, and learned their language. He still couldn't understand. Mind you, he might have forgotten too much of it by now, or have learned the pronunciation different, like louisiana french and parisian or what-the-hell-ever..."

"We should get Isabel to try," I suggested. "She might have remembered more than Michael did." I'm not sure why I really thought that - Michael might not do well with languages in school, but he hadn't learned that one in school, and he'd have probably more natural inclination to retain it than Isabel did. Still, it was worth a try. "Oooh!" I heard someone coming up the stairs, probably either the housemother or one of the other boarders, and it wouldn't do to have any of them noticing the translator. I got up and closed the door of the room, which had been halfway open since I came in.

Rath, who had been holding the communicator at that moment, looked up in surprise. "Hey, I think that that made a difference! It's a little bit clearer now, though I still can't make it out."

"What... what made a difference?" I asked, and before he could answer, "closing the door??"

"Yah." He considered. "Maybe we should try..." He used his powers to draw the window closed, (cutting off the mildly refreshing breeze,) pull down the blind and close the heavy blue drapes. This time I heard the difference - the 'staticky' impression that the sound from the communicator had was much less noticeable, and the volume a bit higher. It even sounded slightly less like a foreign language... just english that was muffled and not being spoken by someone native to it - which of course, it wasn't.

"Why... why is it so sensitive to the immediate environment?" I asked.

"Not the point," Rath argued. "The question is... what changes in the immediate environment can we make to get it working even better?"

"Ummm..." That stumped me for a moment. The triple room, like Liz and mine, was pretty bare, which meant not a lot that could easily be changed. Of course, moving into a different room would definitely be a change in the environment, but not an easy one to experiment with while other people were moving around the flophouse. I tried opening some dresser drawers, (no effect, or maybe a slight decrease,) and then hit on the light switch.

"Halloo, Halloo?" the transmitter suddenly said in distorted but recognizable words. "Tis is Raydeevernal, the diregd replesentatif of her Emeritus Maggesty, Queen-who-was Alinda. Wishing to speech with Max Evans, Michael Guerin, oor Isabel Corinna Evans."

"Hello!" I exclaimed, picking up the transmitter myself and speaking into it as loudly as I can. "Max, Isabel, and Michael aren't here right now - this is..." Wait a second - do these people know about Rath and me, and if not, how to explain without confusing them, making us look like bad guys, or stepping on Max and Michael's strategies? I didn't really want them to think that Rath was the real Rath of Antar reborn and Michael didn't matter in comparison to him, after all, and if they knew that I was Tess' dupe they might want Max to kill me. And Rath had tried to kill Max himself, though he was trying to make up for it now. "We're friends of theirs," I finished lamely. "Hello, are you receiving?"

"Hello, Roswell?" Rayde's voice seemed a bit clearer now - and of course, she couldn't tell that we weren't in Roswell at the moment. "I... I'm not receiving you properly - probably a misalignment at this end. Can you signal your status again??"

"Our status is good," Rath replied. "We're receiving your transmission clearly - anything we can do to help you hear us?"

"Still couldn't get that," Rayde replied, a slight note of sadness in her voice. "Will try again in about a day. Maybe the interference will have cleared up by then. Transmission ends." And the 'badge' fell silent, not even humming.

Rath muttered under his breath for a moment. "Well, we're almost there. No doors or windows upen. No light. What else can we do?"

I thought about it for a second. "Maybe a place that's even more enclosed - one without a window to open." Michael and Alex's room was in the middle of the second floor of the flophouse, and they'd been complaining this morning about how dreary it is. For the communicator, though, that might be just what we needed.

"Hmm... worth a try," Rath agreed. "Of course - with the door closed in there, and no light on, it's going to be a bit spooky. But if that's the secret of getting this thing to work..."

"Yeah," I agreed. And the last time we'd tried, I remembered, we'd been in Max's room, with both windows uncovered, (and I think at least one of them had been open a crack,) with the door ajar, and the light on. This was starting to make sense. "Well, we can't try again now I think, though it might be a good idea to try a transmission of our own rather than waiting for her to." How I knew that Rayde was a woman I wasn't sure.

"How about... this?" I pulled a little brown case out of Max's bag - I'd noticed it while going for the communicator. It was a little magnetic travel chess set. Rath had taught me chess four years ago; he'd learned it hanging around the people who played it in central park, and we'd become fiercely competitve over the mock battles - Zan too. (Lonnie usually announced that she found the whole idea boring, though she'd occasionally taken to the red and black field to defend her honor, and she wasn't any slouch at strategy.) We had a few of our own house rules that we played some of the time. "Pterrian protocol?"

"Get ready to be annihilated," Rath declared, rubbing his hands together with anticipation.

----------

After a grueling session, (final score - two wins for Rath, two draws, and only one checkmate for li'l old me,) we went down to the kitchen for an early dinner. Rath hadn't really had any lunch, so he was ravenous. I thought about trying to go somewhere else, but the kitchen charge didn't really penalize us too heavily for making extra use of it, so it seemed like the best option.

Rath fried up some hamburgers, and I cooked a vegetable medley, (Rath groaned, but I reminded him that eating veggies would help make sure he healed okay,) and also chopped up some fresh trimmings for the burgers. After dinner was done, I challenged him to a chess rematch out in the back yard, and was just in the middle of pressing home a pretty cool double check attack when the van pulled up and Alex, Kyle, Isabel, Michael, and Maria piled out. We pretty much waved as they hurried past us into the kitchen to make their own supper, and most of them drifted outside to watch the game while eating.

I had the advantage for a long time, but Rath is clever and awfully hard to really pin down when you've got him on the ropes, and he nearly turned the tables on me about seven or eight times before I was finally able to lower the boom. Then Maria challenged Michael and Kyle to a pairs game, with Isabel on her team, and that was really fun to watch. Rath played referre, and suggested a rule variant where each team had to take turns according to strict rules... first Maria had to make a move without Isabel's help, say, and then Kyle had to play on his own. Then Isabel, and Michael, and then each of them could conference and collaborate on one move, (which, naturally, ended up involving some planning for the next two turns, although they couldn't confer privately, they had to speak in front of the other team.) Alex and I just hung around and watched - I think that Maria had deliberately left him out because she thought that he'd pulverize anyone he came up against. I'm not quite sure about that... both Rath and I played a bunch of chess with Alex when he was supposedly dead, and he was about in the same league as me, with Rath maybe a whisker ahead of both of us on his best days. But then again, I could probably have played better than most of the players in this team match, so Alex would probably have been able to tip the tables too.

As the sun was starting to think about sinking close to the horizon, and the clocks ticked past six thirty pm, there was still no sign of Max and Liz, and I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Maria and everybody else didn't seem to be concerned though. The girls won the big team chess match, and Alex challenged Rath to a challenge match. Now that Kyle wasn't busy with dinner or chess, I suddenly noticed him a bit more, and all of the confused stomach-twisted-in-knots feelings hit me again. What did he think about where we stood now? He hadn't really talked to me since coming back from the beach. As far as he could tell... I'd left, and spent most of the day with Rath after he attacked Kyle in the football game. Which was pretty much true... had Isabel and Alex told Kyle that they'd had lunch with me, when they got back to the beach? It's not like that part really mattered.

Did Kyle realize yet that Rath was a rival for my affection? Whether he did or not, he still was probably upset. Suddenly decisive, I stepped up to him when he wandered out beneath the shadow of a few trees near the back of the yard. "Umm... I'm, well, I'm sorry for bailing on you earlier."

He shrugged a bit. "No big deal... I mean, it's not like you had any obligation to hang out with me... though I thought we were having fun." He sighed. "Or are you going to tell me that you didn't want to talk with me more because it might get Rath even angrier at me?" He nodded over to where Rath and Alex were still concentrating furiously over the tiny little chessboard. "Because I know that Max patched him up, but somehow I don't really think he's in any shape to tangle with me yet."

I breathed deeply. "No, actually, that didn't have anything to do with it at all." Sighed. "Well, umm, at first I just left because I needed a little time to think about what had happened in the fight, and then I met up with Isabel and Alex and we hung for a while. But, the big thing is... Rath, umm, Rath likes me too. THAT's why he tackled you, not because he was acting brotherly protective of me."

"OHHH." Kyle blinked and stood still, an odd expression coming over his face. "Now *that* changes things."

"Don't start dreaming up payback," I advised. Kyle looked up at me, clearly disappointed. "Seriously. He knows that he stepped way across the line - and, well, even though he won't admit it, he knows that you were doing better when the fight stopped. That's enough." Kyle considered this, and nodded.

There was a bit of awkwardness, and then I blurted out, "Do you want to check out this nightclub tonight? I think Isabel and Alex, Rath and me will be going at least... maybe the whole gang, I'm not sure."

"Hmm." Kyle considered this. "Is it a fake IDs required place?"

"Um, no, I don't think so - not for us now anyway. The flyer said all 18s and up welcome."

"Aww, well, at least it isn't all ages any further down," Kyle said, still seeming unimpressed that we were talking about going to a club where he could enter legit. "Maybe I'll check it out - doesn't really hurt to give it a try, huh?"

"I suppose not... not if you don't count all the time and energy you spend on dressing up... or maybe it isn't that hard on guys," I teased him. "You know, I've actually used a fake ID to sneak into 18 and up places."

"Hmm... in N Y C?" Kyle asked, and I nodded. "Hmm... I didn't know they had many of them there... but somehow I can picture you guys doing that kind of thing. Actually, you'd probably have needed to get some kind of fake ID just to have any kind of identification at all, right? I mean, you don't have birth certificates, you haven't gone through the social services beast like Max, Isabel, and Michael did."

"Yeah, I have a few, actually," I admitted. "Different cards for different purposes - one that's about the right age for how old I looked when I came out of the pod. But no, I really don't want to use the last name that's on that one, if you were thinking of it." Kyle's face fell slightly.

"Can I see it, at least? C'mon, if you don't I'll find some way to sneak a peek anyway."

"Sure - but I don't have it with me." My bag was still up in Rath's room, and I had never changed out of my bikini and stylin' coverup - which didn't really have much in the way of pockets. There was one breast pocket on the shirt, which I could have slipped an ID card into easily enough I guess, but I hadn't thought of it.

"Hmm... I'm not sure how long those two are going to be at it," Rath said, waving over at the chess game in progress, "but I'd like to take the opportunity to challenge you to checkers once they're done. That's my specialty, it's part game of strategy and part artform, and I know that chess players sometimes look down on checkers, but..."

"I - I'd love to play checkers with you," I interrupted him, "but I'm not sure if there's any way to do it with that set - I mean, there aren't any checker pieces."

"You're joking, right?" he asked, and I shook my head slightly, confused. "Those sets are *designed* to double as checker sets. All of the pieces are little flat disc, red or black, with the design of the piece on them, and magnetized to stick on the board, yeah?" I nodded agreement. "Doesn't that make you think of anything?"

For a second I was blank - and then it came to me. "Of course, duhh. All you need to do is flip the discs over, and they're still red or black, with no designs on them - voila, you have checkers. To king a piece, you can magnetically stick two of them together."

"That's pretty much it," Kyle agreed. "Technically, I think you could make a play of it even if the designs were on both sides, just ignoring the distinctions between them - but that might be confusing." He smiled. "Wanna go over and watch? You can probably make a guess as to how long they'll be at it, and we can see if anyone else wanted dibs on the board after they were done."

"Cool, yeah," I said, and wandered over towards the picnic table, Kyle right beside me. He reached out to hold my hand in his... and I smiled.

----------

"Okay, what do you think of that?" Isabel asked through the door.

"Umm... I'm not sure." I'd begged out of getting changed in front of the other girls - it was fine to undress in the same room as Liz when neither of us were really looking or caring, but somehow I still felt too shy to be naked and the object of scrutiny at the same time. Finally I'd gotten this latest outfit ON, but I wasn't sure how it looked, and didn't feel like coming out until I'd gotten a good look myself. Still - how? the little mirror on the wall didn't give me much of an idea, other than a glimpse of the same light aqua-blue color that I could see if I just looked down at myself. (The fabric had originally been a light blue pair of Isabel pants, which should probably give you a tiny notion of how it fit now that it was turned into an Ava dress.) Come on, what was there in here that could be reflective? I pulled up the shade on the window and waved my hand over it - turning the glass temporarily into a ninety percent mirror. Ahh - that helped. Remembering something that Isabel had said about her trip offplanet, I did the same waving trick on a patch of air, set at an angle to the window, and created another mirror literally out of thin air. Cool. Now I could even check out my own butt, if I angled myself carefully and let the reflection bounce off both reflective surfaces.

Hmmm... not at all bad! I meant the outfit, not my butt, though that's also pretty good if I do say so myself. Actually, the dress is so short that it nearly doesn't cover my butt - hmm... better be careful about how and when I bend over - but that isn't a tragedy. It could even be a useful move if I should decide that I need one. Aside from that, the sheath of blue fabric fit close enough about my body to show off figure without being completely slutty about it - the back dipped fairly low, though not low enough to reach to my waist or anything like that. Cleavage check was satisfactory as well, giving a nice hint of the girls but not going too far. The straps that looped around my shoulders weren't quite small enough to be called 'spaghetti', but not much thicker than that, either. I could definitely see myself having a great time at a nightclub in this outfit, especially if... I rushed over to pull the old brown rigid case from under my bed, opened it up, and pulled out my best pair of heels, white three-inchers with leather straps. A touch, a moment's concentration, and they had changed to a shade of blue that perfectly matched the dress. I put the heels on, took a few practice steps to get the hang of them, and strutted out the door to show my gorgeous self off to Liz and Isabel.

They weren't the only ones I ended up showing myself off to... and I'm not just talking about Maria, either. Kyle and Rath had been standing in their doorway when I swayed into the hall, in the middle of a slightly macho exchange I think, but for a long moment that was forgotten as they stared at yours truly. Seeing them there like that, next to each other and both looking me up and down with slightly hungry eyes made me feel... well, nervous and excited all at once. They were both so... so manly and vigorous, in different ways, and... well, I couldn't help but think in that moment that I could hardly go wrong - as long as I didn't manage to piss them BOTH off at me so badly that I ended up with no-one. Pick one of them - great. Draw out the process, so that they were both flirting with me and trying to impress me - hey, great! I have to admit, the thought of trying to have my cake and eat it too even flashed through my mind... though egos would have to be VERY carefully managed if I wanted to make that any more than a fantasy - otherwise, see above under messing up and ending with nobody.

"Oh my god, you look incredible," Liz said, so bright and perky that it almost annoyed me. Now, I guess I should probably explain this part a little further, since the last you heard of Liz, I was still waiting for her to show up again, and getting a little nervous and wondering if somebody should call her cell phone. She and Max arrived, with Alex's car, about halfway through my checkers game against Kyle. Both of them looking all glowy and blushing slightly, so that I started to wonder exactly what they'd been up all afternoon and halfway into the evening. But there hadn't been time to pull her aside and ask, of course... and probably my imagination was starting to run away with me. I mean, Liz wasn't the kind of girl to 'become a woman' out on some isolated oceanside point, far away from home, was she? I thought for a little bit longer about sex on the beach, and then put the notion aside. Damn, the sand really *would* get EVERYWHERE!!

"Cool!!" I said, hugging Liz impulsively, then turning back to Isabel to say thanks before I forgot. "What about you, Parker - you're coming along, right?? Whatcha gonna wear?"

"Umm... you know, I think I packed some things that should work without alien alteration," she said. "Just a minute." And she slipped into the room alone, leaving me to wonder just what she had in mind. But with no way to find that out but wait, I started to look around. Maria came out of the other girls' room at that point, dressed up herself in a very classy black dress, her hair down and straightened, which was a pretty good look for her. Isabel was still wearing a fairly plain tank top and olive shorts, so I figured that she was going to get changed in a minute or two.

Oh, wait a second, you probably want to hear about the checkers game a bit more, don't you? Well, it wasn't long after we started hanging around that Alex managed to pull off an inspired skewer to capture Rath's queen, and after that it wasn't long before he had the checkmate. Rath clearly didn't like the idea of me playing games with Kyle, (though he didn't have any room to be jealous, since we'd played so much chess that afternoon, and he didn't act up nearly as badly as he did yesterday, which I counted as an improvement.) Once it was clear that Kyle was more familiar with the game than I was, Rath decided to help me out, which I didn't really mind, and Kyle didn't make a big deal out of.

So it was the three of us, playing and joking, and *not* really saying anything to acknowledge the whole love triangle thing. I really had a lot of fun, and learned a few things about both guys by the way they were dealing with the situation, though I'm not sure how to put my new realizations into words, never mind fit them into any eventual choice. Oh, and Kyle managed to annihilate me even with Rath's help, though R probably helped me stay alive a lot longer than I would have on my own. Then again, maybe Kyle wouldn't have played so hard against me alone.

So, after the game was over, we started getting ready for a night out at the Alamo, which pretty much catches you up to where I started this scene. And somehow, I suspected that no matter how things went tonight, I was definitely going to remember the Alamo. (Groan it you must.) Some of the guys were already dressed... I think Maria probably talked Michael into the white jeans and pale yellow t-shirt, but he did look pretty good like that. Max was fairly restrained, but decent, in tight navy blue slacks and a gray button-up shirt.

That reminded me - I hadn't remembered to tell Max or anyone else about the transmission event this afternoon, and somehow I doubted Rath had either. So I crossed over to where Max was standing next to Michael. "There's something I have to tell you about the communicator."

Max blinked for a second. "So tell."

I started with the basic fact of a communication attempt while Rath and I had been the only ones in our group around the house, and then started to describe what we'd found out about the communcator being responsive to its immediate environment, what we'd done to get it to react as well as we could, and our ideas about what might improve the conditions even further. Finally, (and feeling a little foolish about the order,) I repeated what I could remember of the transmitted words themselves.

"Hmm..." Max considered. "Rayde-something?" I giggled nervously and nodded.

"I... I think she was mentioned while I was on Stellynfrus," Michael muttered, his eyes locked onto mine. I realized, with a little internal chuckle, that he was carefully keeping his gaze above my neck to avoid getting in trouble with Maria or something... in fact, Max was looking at me in much the same way. "She's not just some personal assistant - according to Antarian social convention she's permitted to stand in for Alinda in nearly any situation... which makes her nearly royalty herself."

Max looked up at that. "What are the limits of 'nearly any situation?' I mean, if we manage to talk to this lady... should I treat her as if she were... were my long lost grandmother or whatever? The same way I'd talk to Alinda herself?"

"Um... no, I don't think so. Purely personal relationships and family don't carry over the same way," Michael replied. "Well, good idea about trying it in our room in the dark. We'll try that... late tomorrow morning?"

"Alright," Max said. "I'll see who wants to crowd in."

Just about that point, Max got distracted by Liz's reapparance, wearing a pleated miniskirt, (not quite as short as the hem on my dress but nearly,) in a red, blue, and purple wavy pattern - and a sleeveless, black, cropped peasant blouse, that went up nearly all the way to her neck but left a strip of midriff exposed between itself and the skirt - and her smoothly tanned arms of course. The entire outfit looked like it could have been stashed up the sleeve of the shirt Liz had been wearing earlier without any of us noticing... and I'm pretty sure Max liked that about it. The fabric of the skirt seemed particularly thin and delicate... like the substance of a hankerchief. I smiled, enjoying the sight of Liz all dressed up for a night on the town, (and looking very sexy.) "Ohmigawd," I breathed, hurring forward. "I love that bracelet - where did you get it?"

"Um... this?" Liz said a bit needlessly, holding up her left wrist, which had a pretty silver chain stretching around it, decorated with shiny black stones every inch and a half or so. "Umm, it was a present from my Grandma - I've had it for years." She smiled at me, and then jumped slightly. "Jewelry! That's it!!"

"It's what?" Max asked, drawing Liz into his arms for a tender embrace and a kiss.

"Umm... that's what Ava's outfit is missing... or doesn't have enough of anyway." I blinked in surprise at Liz's declaration, but couldn't argue - the only bling I had on were tiny little gold studs in my ears, and now that my hair was down, and grown out a bit, you could hardly even see them. Max sighed goodnaturedly as his date dragged me back into the room to see what pretty little things we could find for me to wear.

----------

The nightclub was pretty cool.

By the time Liz and I were done with the jewelry thing... (mostly cheap and tasteful rings, one arm-band, and a necklace pendant that Liz was able to sit right at the top of my cleavage 'just to emphasize the decolletage,' she said,) everybody else was ready to go. None of the guys had taken much time getting dressed, though they all looked good - mostly wearing jeans and a varied assortment of shirts. I paid special attention to my two suitors, of course - Rath was wearing black jeans and a forest green t-shirt that he'd drawn the whirlpool galaxy onto with his powers - I remembered that shirt from our New York Days, which was possibly why he'd picked it. Kyle's jeans were blue, the color almost washed out of them in places, and he was wearing a red collar shirt with three buttons down the front. Again, it was hard to say which one looked hotter. Took us a little while to find the club, but not long enough that I'm going to go into a big narration about it.

"Oh, I'm so glad that we happened to be in that chicken place at the right time," Isabel said as we walked inside. Oh, speaking of Isabel, she was looking incredible all dressed up to party too, though that shouldn't really surprise anybody. She was wearing black leather pants, boots, a tight red tube top, and she had tied her hair up into two long plaits (or maybe braids,) that ran halfway down her back. (She's been growing her hair out all summer.) The look was very dramatic, and it got me wondering just how long it had taken her to braid her hair like that using her powers. It couldn't be just a question of waving her hands and bam, braided hair... our powers couldn't really allow matter to pass through other matter. She could move any bit of hair just by concentrating on it, but still it was an awful lot to keep track of. Alex was dressed up in some kind of fancy pants too, black to match Isabel's leather, and a light blue dress shirt.

We split up pretty quickly once we were inside - Max and Liz, Michael and Maria decided to go dancing first thing... (well, Michael didn't really decide so much as Maria decided for him, but this once he didn't seem to mind.) Isabel and I, and 'our guys' (Alex, Kyle, and Rath,) ended up drifting towards the bar area to get some drinks and just sit down to get our bearings. There was already a fairly long line for the bar, and it took nearly fifteen minutes of standing and waiting before any of us came up - but that wasn't too bad. I chatted with just about everybody, pointing out other people in the crowd and trying to guess things about their life, which became a game that everybody else joined in with. I got a sweet, fruity, slushy mug of something pinkey-purple when I got up to the bar - can't remember what it was called or how I'd managed to order it if I didn't know what it was. Kyle tried to get a cold beer, passed a fake ID and got caught at it by the bartender, and both Isabel and I had to flirt with the bartender to keep him from calling a bouncer and getting Kyle thrown out. Kyle ended up just having an expensive bottled water. I got a good look at Rath's face when all of that drama was over... he'd been quietly enjoying the trouble that Kyle had gotten himself in, but now seemed upset that I'd gone to such lengths to keep Kyle around. Maybe he'd been hoping that Kyle *would* have had to leave, and then he'd have me all to himself all evening, and it'd have been Kyle's own fault. We chatted and talked as a group for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, and then Alex spotted a more intimate table for two that was free, and he and Isabel excused themselves. Of course, it shouldn't have surprised me that they wanted to spend some quality time alone together, but suddenly it sunk in that we were back to the threesome again.

"Umm... so, anybody got any big plans for tomorrow?" I asked a bit nervously.

"Probably go to the beach again," Kyle said lazily, trying to look as cool as he possibly could while drinking water.

"Hmm... well, I was thinking about hitting the Lexington," Rath countered. Was he trying to set me up in a situation where I'd have to make a choice? "She saw a lot of decent action in the Pacific, world war two. Now they've got her set up as a museum ship in the harbour."

I smiled, shaking me head slightly. "You always did love the big millitary hardware, didn't you Rath?"

"Hey, that sounds pretty cool actually," Kyle chimed in. "Better than the beach again. I'm in."

Huh. What... oh, hmm, was it possible that Kyle had interpreted my sympathetic comment as a prelude to deciding that I wanted to go to the aircraft carrier myself? And, rather than set himself up on the losing end himself, he switched to call off Rath's symbolic victory. Or, maybe he just liked the navy stuff too. The thing was, *I* wasn't particularly interested in going to see the Lexington - I'd rather go back to the beach, especially since I hadn't spent the whole day there today, or maybe check out the Aquarium or something. But... well, as amusing as it might be to say so right now and watch the macho men try to find a way to backpedal, I decided to wait for later. (Or maybe they'd just go and see all the big guns by themselves, with Michael maybe joining in. If they went alone, I have to admit I'd be worrying about what might happen if they got into a scrap again. Hmm.)

I turned to look out at the dance floor, and a few seconds later, a voice blurted out, "M'lady, may I have this dance??" It was Rath. I turned back, and Kyle was glaring slightly at the other young man and looking upset that he hadn't asked himself.

"Umm... no, not this one - I haven't quite finished my drink yet," I pointed out. "How about the next song?" Took a swig of slushy pink. And I shot a meaningful look at Kyle... I'd be saving the song after that for him, regardless of whether he asked me or not. Taking turns seemed like the best way of handling this kind of thing for the moment.

As it happened, the next song was a slow dance, and the one after that a fast one, which meant that things didn't quite come out quite even, and though I did my best to keep things fair, it got more and more confusing and frankly, I wasn't as worried about keeping the peace as much as enjoying myself as the night wore on. There was, to my surprise, a kind of video arcade in the back of the club, which was pretty much a hit with all three of us, and we ran into a few of the other guys in there too... Max and Liz were playing some partnership game with colored bubble patterns at one point, and Alex slipped in to get a little Mega Man action while Isabel was off at the ladies' room. Around this point, they stopped spinning vinyl and got a live music act, a pretty decent punk rock band that I didn't think was local, though I didn't recognize them. I just sat in the vicinity of the stage for a while and listened, not dancing, and Rath joined me. Kyle sat down too, but I don't think punk is really his scene, and I spotted him dancing with a short and pretty girl, maybe Mexican or indian from the tone of her skin, though it was a little hard to judge such things under the dance floor lighting.

Rath went over to the bar, and got me a refill of my pink stuff, and I drained it pretty quickly - the inside of the club must have been hotter than I'd thought. I listened to the band for a bit longer, but before long I was out on the dance floor again... a fast, energetic number, shakin' my bootie near both Kyle and Rath, not dancing with either one specifically, nor all three of us dancing together really, but each near to the others. Kyle smiled at me in a way that was somehow enormously appealing, and I stepped over to him and kissed him energtically.

Almost immediately, there was a scoffing sound nearby, soft, but I could hear and identify it perfectly even over the loud music and the crowd sounds. Rath was just starting to turn away from both of us. "Noo," I urged, reaching out to grab for his arm while still keeping my other hand touching Kyle. "I... I didn't mean to, well -- the more the merrier, right?" I smiled alluringly at Rath.

And the next thing that I remember was losing my balance and wilting. Kyle tried to wrap his arms around my back as I fell, but he wasn't quite prepared and I slipped away from his grasp. Then darkness.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Chapter 4

Part Four

I have a vague memory of stretching out across a car seat, not sure if it was Alex's car or the van. Sensation of being carried, either before that or after. But, well, things don't become anything like clear again until I realized that I was lying in my bed back at the flophouse. "What... what happened??" I moved all of my arms and legs, if only just to make sure that I could. One of my legs brushed against a warm body.

"We brought you back to the flophouse after you collapsed on the dance floor," Rath's voice told me softly. "How do you feel?"

"Umm... weak, dizzy, achey... and like I might expel what's left of my dinner out the wrong way," I admitted.

"Might make you feel better. There's a basin, umm, right down off the edge of the bed, near your head. Do you want me to get it, or..."

Thought about that. "No, no, I'll --" I meant to say more after I turning around to poke my head over the edge of the bed and double-check the position of the basin - actually a big plastic dishpan. The good news was that I was oriented right. The bad news was that the disorientation of moving my head so much brought vomit forth without any conscious intent or ability to stop it. I spewed and retched for - umm, nearly a minute, though that's a guess, and when I was done there were footsteps - and a toilet flushing not too far away. But very soon Rath's voice was back with me. (I hadn't really seen him throughout all of this - just heard him and felt a body at the end of the bed at about the right point.

"Do... do you want to drink, or at least wash the gunk outta your moth?" Ahh, that was Rath, alright. Forever the delicate one. "I've got cool water and cold grapefruit juice."

Hmm... all three options, (drink cool water, drink juice, use water to rinse my mouth... I discarded the idea of rinsing with juice,) seemed appealing, but my body was telling me that even if it wasn't capable of vomiting any more, I would probably be setting myself up for a round of very unpleasant dry heaves if I so much as moved. "Umm... in a few minutes?" I said hopefully. Compared with the notion of my stomach trying to upchuck nothing at all, over and over again, the traces of half-digested food in my mouth weren't so bad and could just stay put. "What... do you have any idea what happened to me? Was I targeted by some alien mental attack or something?"

Rath's voice chuckled softly. "Some of the others are trying to find out for sure, but my own theory doesn't have to do with enemy telepathy so much as exotic fruits."

"Fruits??"

"Those purple things you were drinking tonight?" Rath prompted. "You don't have the slightest clue what was in them, do you?" I shook my head.

"No, except that I'm pretty sure it wasn't alcoholic. I'm not that stupid."

"Not... quite." Rath sighed. "But alcohol isn't the only thing that we have to watch out for, right? There are certain earth plants that have bad side effects on hybrid biology... even things that regular humans can eat and not catch so much as a buzz. Seems likely that one of those plants, or its juice, was in your drink."

I thought about it - that actually fit - the way I had been feeling a bit fuzzier throughout the night ever since going to the bar that first time, and losing moments in time, especially after Rath got me a refill. The way that I had kissed Kyle and come on to Rath on the dance floor at practically the same moment, on the dance floor, right before passing out - yeah, that looked like intoxication of some sort. "I feel so stupid."

"Ehh, don't be so hard." I felt Rath's fingers touch the side of my face - brushing a little hair off of my cheek. "It's not something that any of the rest of us thought of either. I got you the second mug without wondering about it."

"Hmm." I took a gut check, as it were, and realized that I felt a lot better. Carefully, very carefully, sat myself up against the lumpy pillow on my bed and asked Rath for the water. He got up to put it carefully in my hand, and I rinsed my mouth out and spit back into the water glass. "Ahh, that's better. Juice now?" Rath chuckled as he switched the glasses, and then he left the room again - probably to dump the vomit water down the sink.

"Hey!" I called out before he got back. "What about Kyle? Are you the only one here with me?? I mean, in the whole flophouse?"

"Not quite," Rath answered. "I managed to convince them that it would be better if not a lot of us were crowding around you up here." I thought about that and realized that it was true. "Liz is down in the kitchen - if you'd appreciate her company, I can call her up. Kyle insisted on doing something to help, so Michael collared him and Maria to go scrounging up for a general purpose antitoxin that he read about in the Destiny book translation. Max and Isabel stayed behind to brace the bartender, and Alex is heading back there to make sure that they have a ride once they've got the scoop."

"Right," I said, nodding as the picture started to come together. "I guess that not everybody could fit in the cars, since I had to have a lot of room because I was so sick."

"Well, we could probably have squeezed in," Rath pointed out. I took another swallow of the grapefruit juice... it's always been one of my favorite drinks, and seemed to be restoring my system from whatever beating it had taken, though everything was still pretty fuzzy and a part of my brain hadn't yet decided to come back from whatever drunken trip it was on. "But the plan made sense for a lot of reasons."

"By the way, I think I WOULD appreciate Liz coming up and joining us," I told him, and smiled slightly. Another meeting between the three of us came immediately to mind - after Michael, Isabel, and Tess had left planet Earth late in the spring, Rath had assumed Michael's identity to bring Liz to our hideout and let her know what we'd been up to. Liz had freaked out when she realized that Rath really was Rath, and asked me if he was threatening me into some nefarious plan. Even after we'd reassured him that Rath was trying to change his ways, she'd gone into even higher reaches of hysteria a few minutes later, accusing us of letting Tess kill Alex - until Alex had stepped out of hiding, showing himself, and eventually persuaded Liz that he hadn't really died so much as faked his death.

And now... well, it was probably a stretch to say that I had nearly killed myself, but that could have happened if my reaction to whatever had been in the drink had been noticeably worse. I was so wrapped up in these thoughts that I didn't even notice Rath leaving the room. When he and Liz appeared, she was holding a glass full of some bright blue liquid. "Kyle's very worried about you," Liz said, before I could even wave hello to her.

"Umm... oh, he and Michael and Maria are back?" I asked, and Liz nodded. "That... that suggests that this..." I nodded at the glass, and Liz looked at me expectently for a long moment. "This is the cure that they went to find?"

"Umm... not so much a cure, as..." Liz blushed. "Well... as far as we can work out, it's meant to purge your system, make sure that you don't absorb any more of the toxin, whatever that is. The downside of that is..."

"That I'd have to spend a long time in the bathroom tonight?" I guessed, and Liz nodded, a very uncomfy look on her face. "I... I don't think I really need that, I'm doing okay now."

"That - that could be misleading, Ava," Rath said, softly and tenderly. "We... we don't know how this thing goes. There could be other stages that are just as bad. And this stuff isn't just a laxative. It'll help get rid of any of the toxin that's in your bloodstream, or to a certain extent, any that's made it into your cells themselves." He sighed. "You need to drink it."

I groaned. "I could so have gone through tonight without drinking anything else that didn't look familiar," and Liz nodded sympathetically. But I grabbed the glass and drained it as quickly as I could - it had an odd sort of taste that wasn't really much like anything I'd ever had before, bitter and blandly sweet at the same time. As I was draining it, and taking just a mouthful of juice to wash it down, (not too much, because the juice would probably just be leaving again soon anyway,) I noticed that Rath hadn't hesitated at all before telling me to take the medicine... that Kyle had helped get. Whatever rivalry he felt for the other guy, that went right out the window when I was in danger, apparently. And Kyle had gone and let Rath play nursemaid to me, whatever his reasons were.

"Well," I groaned. "You guys had probably better help me into the bathroom before it's too late, or anything, uggh. And then send Kyle up once I'm settled."

I'm not going to go into great and gory detail about that night, partly because I don't really remember that much of it. (And none at all about the bathroom stuff, because that's just gross.) But I do remember Kyle keeping me company outside the bathroom door, handing in water or juice when I thought it would help, and distracting me by relating, in great and minute detail, the plots of two of his favorite movies and one of his favorite books.

In between, I found out that Max and Isabel had come back, that they'd found out which rare spanish berry in the drink had probably triggered my attacks, and that it was listed in the Book translation that Alex kept on his pocket PC. (Securely encrypted, of course, just in case.) It was something that was pleasantly intoxicating to Antarians at first, but the delayed reactions could kill them. Score one for Rath's intuition about taking the damn antitoxin elixer.

But I was feeling quite a bit better, and once I had no further need for the facilities, (around quarter to one am,) Kyle helped me back to my room. Liz had already collapsed in her own bed at some point, apparently. "Kyle... why did you let Rath be the one to take care of me?"

"Umm... he was so determined to be," Kyle said after a moment. "And I didn't think this was the best time to be getting into a fight with him."

I smiled slightly. "Well, see you tomorrow."

"Not too early, though. You need to sleep, and get your rest," Kyle said with a smile.

I definitely slept. Had a weird dream, that people were calling to me out of the darkness. Zan. Lonnie. Even Tess. I couldn't quite make out the words that they were saying, though - or at least not remember them.

---------

Woke up in the middle-ish of the night, around four, feeling really hungry, which seemed like a good sign. Or at least perfectly reasonable, given how much I'd puked and crapped, getting rid of perfectly good food because it had gotten tainted with berry-berry juice or whatever. Nobody else was around, but I dressed in some flannel PJs and went down to the kitchen, making myself a big sandwhich and a bowl of junk food. Went back upstairs and collapsed into bed again after eating and washing my dishes. The next thing I remember, it was almost noon.

"Oh, hey sleepy-poo," Maria said, stepping up to my door after hearing me groaning from inside. I groaned again, just because any reference at all to poo seemed in bad taste at that moment. "Feeling better this morning?"

"Umm... yeah, quite a bit," I admitted. "Though I'll never drink anything unfamiliar in a nightclub as long as I live, I think... or anything at all that I don't know all the ingredients of." Maria nodded. "Is anyone else hanging around the house right now?"

"Just Michael and me," she said. "I came up to fetch some sunscreen, because we've been hanging out in the yard and don't want to get burned. What about you, feel like sticking close to base camp or going a little bit further?"

"Umm... I'm not sure," I hedged. Did I want to meet up with Kyle, or Rath, or both? Or maybe meet up with Liz and Max and play third wheel, assuming that they were spending time together that was. "Where's everybody else?" Maybe hearing all of that would make something slightly clearer.

"Umm... I think that Max, Liz, Rath, and Kyle are all up at the beach, or out on the pier, something in that area, at least." Hmm, was that a sign? "Alex and Isabel went to see the bird sanctuary."

Well, I definitely wasn't in the mood to go and see birds, I thought. "I think... I feel like hanging with you and Michael for a little while, including lunch or brunch or something, and then going down to the beach again."

Maria smiled. "Sounds cool to me. I may join you."

"Alright. Are we without wheels here at the moment?"

"Yeah, actually... but we can ride that bus out to the beach, yeah?"

"Yep. Seems like it's my fate to keep riding the bus," I giggled to make it clear that I didn't really mind. When we got downstairs and met Michael out in the back yard, he was lying flat on one of the picnic tables, his shirt off, (which, incidentally, wow!) and seemed to be turning an interesting shade of red. "You know, Guerin, I think it's too late for the sunblock on you. You've already picked up the makings of a bad sunburn. How long have you been out here?"

"Umm... only an hour or so. Come on, that's not long enough to burn, is it?" Michael asked.

"Umm... it could be - especially if an ozone hole drifted overhead today or something like that," Maria said. "Come on, let's get you inside, and into an ice bath."

"Not a chance," Michael said, flinching back... and then rubbing in annoyance at his puffy skin. "Ava, you can fix this, can't you??"

"Not really my specialty, and I'm not sure that my powers are on an even keel since last night anyway," I whispered.

"Then I'm going to see Max," Michael insisted stubbornly.

"No way," Maria insisted. "You're not heading out to the beach anyway, and if you did, Max would probably refuse to help you - it'd be suspicious, you going to the beach on a city bus with a monster burn, and then suddenly being all better. We wouldn't be able to tell if someone might notice."

"You know, I think you're getting a little spoiled with the alien thing, Michael," I pointed out. "Most people don't have a healer best friend that they can run off to if they get a boo-boo. This is what they deal with for a sunburn. I went through my own health emergency last night, worse than what you've got, and Max couldn't fix it by waving his hand. Can't you sutter through this the usual way?"

Michael made a face at me, but he lay in the ice bath for a little while and then let Maria rub some soothing lotion that she'd packed all over his back, shoulders, and arms. By the time that was done, and Maria and I had eaten lunch and gotten changed, it was nearly one thirty. I wore my pink suit today, and Maria decided to not bother with a real swimsuit, just a wifebeater and short shorts, even if that would keep her out of the water. We still got a few whistles when we climbed onto the bus, even if we weren't in bikinis. Good for a girl's sense of body image, that kind of thing, I think. Every once in a while at least.

We got to the beach quickly enough, and found Rath lying on his back, slathered in suntan oil, wearing only a tiny little black speedo suit, and surrounded by everybody else's towels. He said that Liz and Max were either swimming or trying to windsurf, and that Kyle had gone up to wander on the pier. Maria grinned and laid out her own towel, taking the protection cream to smear over everything that her clothes didn't cover and laid out on her back. I thought about going to find Kyle, but realized that I'd spent a lot of time with Kyle last night, so if I was still even trying to apply the 'taking turns' approach, it was Rath's now. So I creamed myself up too, and since this top left a few places exposed on my back that were quite hard to find by touch alone myself, I asked Rath if he'd be able to make sure I was protected.

Rath was smiling slightly as he sat up, and I lay down on my back. "How's that?" His strong fingers seemed delightful pressing gently into the tired muscles of my back, but I didn't admit that.

"Umm, seems fine. Thanks."

"What about your butt?" Rath asked, and I made a slightly dubious sound. "Not your butt itself, I know that that's covered, pretty much. But it looks like you weren't quite able to get some of the top of the back of your thighs, just beneath the butt, probably because they were too close to where you were sitting at the time. You can probably cream them yourselves, if you, uhh, stand up and bend back a little, but..."

I laughed softly. "No - go ahead. Should be pretty clear where the no trespassing line is." And sure enough, Rath applied the cream very efficiently to the spots that I'd miss, and didn't let his fingers stray either underneath my bikini bottom or over top of it. (Or them, maybe, though I admit I never really understood why people say 'bikini bottoms' as if they were pants. Pants and shorts sort of qualify as plural because they have two legs. Bikinis don't have legs, and leg holes don't really count. Then again, long sleeved shirts have two arms but they're not plural. English is pretty confusing at times.)

We started talking about that kind of thing, all three of us throwing out examples, like why people drive down a parkway and park on their driveways. Maria told Rath some about Michael getting burnt and how he'd reacted to her attempts to take care of him. Something odd was nagging at me then, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And Max and Liz came back from windsurfing - Max didn't want to sit out in the sun, so he borrowed a big thick sun umbrella from someone and set it up a little ways away, so that anyone sitting underneath the umbrella could still talk to the sunbathers, though not really in a low enough voice that we could talk about anything secret. I decided that I was drowsy enough that I should get out of the sun, so that I didn't need to worry about losing track of the time and getting burnt myself. So I joined Max and Liz under the umbrella, leaving only Maria and Rath out tanning. As they yattered on about how cool the windsurfing had been, I let my eyes closed, and something about their words and the slight trace of ocean breeze flowing past me was very relaxing. At some point, I dropped off into a snooze.

And was woken up by a loud shriek, close by. I jumped halfway to my feet, wondering if there had been some other serious crisis. But the tableau that met my eyes didn't seem to speak of great big hairy danger, as the bits of it became clear. Maria standing up near the edge of the umbrella's shade, her tank top hanging off her torso in a slightly disarrayed manner and probably showing the pink bra she had underneath it. (I could only see from behind her, but I could see the part of the bra that went around her back.) Her hair, skin, and clothes were all dripping.

Kyle was standing near to Maria's towel, a large pail like you might use for scrubbing a floor clean, (not with a mop, really scrubbing on your hands and knees,) still in his hands, nearly upside down. The pail was also dripping, but not nearly as much as Maria was, and there was a look on Kyle's face that was partly triumphant and just a little bit foolish. Rath had half sat up from a 'lying on his back' pose and was glaring at Kyle. And, all around Maria's towel were little pools of water, sinking quickly down as the sand absorbed their mosture.

"What? The?? HELL!?" Maria clearly enunciated at Kyle, her body trembling slightly - whether from sudden chill or anger was hard to tell immediately.

"Umm... I thought that was going to be a lot funnier than it seems to have been so far," Kyle muttered, a bit lamely.

"*Funny?*" Maria repeated, sounding not in the least amused. "You soaked my TOWEL, Kyle!" She picked up said towel and flung it at him - the towel landed across his chest and shoulder in a drippy and sodden strip. "What's so funny about that??"

"Well, the look on your face when he first started to dump kinda makes me wish I had a camera here," Liz pointed out. "Not that that doesn't make it pretty inconsiderate, still."

"Okay, I'll cop to that," Kyle sighed, seeing that he wasn't going to get any support at all. "Well, you can use my towel, Maria, and I'll do without. That's only fair, if I kept you from using yours."

"Yeah, thanks," Maria told him sardonically. "That's the very least that you could do." And she turned around and started to walk away.

"Aren't... aren't you going to dry off?" Kyle asked, a little confused.

"No!" Maria whirled on him again. "If yours is the only towel I get now... I don't want to get it wet! I want it to be dry so that I can lie on it. Myself, I can dry by walking around a little." And she hurried off.

"Hey, okay if I tag along?" Max asked. Maria turned, hesitated, and finally made a little gesture with her finger to indicate that Max's presence would be tolerated with at least a pretense of good grace. Max shot Liz and me a look as if to say 'I wonder what I'm getting myself into,' and followed.

Kyle, who was blushing at this point, stepped into the shadow of the sun umbrella, and waved vaguely at Max's chair - Liz had borrowed or rented three white folding wooden chairs - one for herself, one for Max, and one for me. "Do you mind?"

"Umm... no, I suppose not," Liz said, her voice noticeably frosty. Kyle grinned a little sardonically. It probably didn't take much insight on his part to tell that Liz was probably upset with the fairly stupid prank Kyle had played on her best friend, even if she was the only other one who had admitted out loud that it had its funny side.

"Okay, so I probably shouldn't try that one again with this crowd," Kyle sighed. "It was a hit last summer at football camp."

"Maybe that tells you something about a football player's sense of humor," I couldn't help but resist needling. Kyle shot a look over at me, and shook his head in resignation, but he was smiling slightly.

Kyle and Liz started talking about old days - back before she'd even really met Max, and I was starting to feel bored. "You know, I think that I could use a walk too... maybe explore the the souvenir stores near here." I stood up, and Kyle looked up, disappointed and with that same 'did I make a mistake' look on his face that he'd had once Maria started yelling him about the pailful of water. I smiled as reassuringly as I could. Kyle and I would have other chances to hang out, and he and Liz had been enjoying the walk down memory lane until I spoke up - they should continue it a while longer, I thought.

Rath turned around and rose to a squatting position, all in one mostly-fluid movement. "Want some company?"

Oooh... this was trickier. But what the heck - having Rath tag along would be fun, and I wasn't feeling that strict about the taking turns thing at the moment. "As you please - I certainly wouldn't mind." Rath got up, retrieved a bunched-up t shirt that had been sitting next to him on the edge of his towel, and put it over his head, wrinkles and all. He didn't bother about doing anything to cover his exposed legs as we left, and somehow I wasn't quite sure how to mention them to him - or even if I wanted to.

We chatted softly about reasonable precautions to take to avoid a repetition of last night's calamity, and about what Rath's morning had been like while I slept.. nothing grandly interesting. I led the way, leaving the beach at a different point than I had yesterday, walked up a tourist-ey street half a block, saw a souvenir store, and went in to browse.

"Hmm," Rath said, after watching me look at keychains and little fuzzy animal babies. (Stuffed toy fuzzy animal babies, I mean, not real ones... or taxidermically stuffed dead fuzzy animal babies.) The small talk had stopped when I led him inside. "Are you thinking of getting a present for anybody in particular?"

"Hmm." I thought about that, and couldn't figure out a good way to answer it for a little while. "Does a souvenir have to be a present for anybody? Maybe I just want to get a little something to keep in my room and remember our trip to Corpus Christi."

Rath snickered. "Yeah, right. Souvenir or no souvenir, I suspect you're NEVER going to forget these past few days as long as you live." He had a point. I started to tally up everything that had happened from the time we first left on the drive. When I got to the bit with the alien communicator, I nearly dropped a sand-globe on the floor. (Like a snow-globe, but I guess nobody would ever believe snow in south Texas. A sandstorm surrounding the city doesn't seem that much more believable to me, but at least it's a funny image. And, of course, like snow globes it'd be breakable and I really didn't want to pay a replacement.)

"The communicator!" I hissed into Rath's ear. "Did... did you guys forget it, after all that happened to me a the nightclub?"

Rath blinked. "Actually... pretty much yeah. And... and if Rayde's cycle is anything like an earth day, she could be calling any minute."

I thought about it for only a second. "Find Max and anybody else who wants to come, and drive back RIGHT now? We... we won't be able to grab Isabel and Alex, not without taking a long time to find them at the bird place..."

"Sounds like a plan." Rath smiled at me slightly. "You go tell Kyle and Liz, while I try to intercept Max and Maria??"

"Alright." We hurried back out of the store.

-----------

"Did you put it back where you found it?" Max asked as he led the way up the stairs.

"Yeah!" Rath agreed. "I think." We followed Max into the room he shared with Rath and Kyle, and Max only had to stick his hand into the book bag, and a second later he was extracting the communicator. It was completely quiet and silent again.

"Hmm..." I mused softly. "I wonder if there's any way to set up a notification of missed calls on that thing."

"Let's worry about actually getting a conversation working," Max suggested, "and then we can worry about the more advanced calling features."

"Makes sense," Rath agreed.

"I wonder if Michael would have heard it from his room," I said. "Seems unlikely, but..."

"Well, we said that we were going to try calling from his and Alex's room," Max said. "We can ask him - nothing to lose by trying it." He charged back out of his room - and nearly collided with Maria, who had apparently come in from the car and climbed the stairs without the same urgency that had overcome the rest of us. Liz and Kyle had decided to stay out at the beach for a little while longer instead of charging back to play with alien doohickeys, and I think Maria had been considering staying with them, but her frustration at Kyle had ended up tipping her the other way. Once the slight traffic jam was sorted out, we filed into Michael's room.

"Hey, baby, how're you doing?" Maria asked, kneeling down next to her sweetie's bed.

"Ehh... okay I suppose," Michael muttered, and then he got a suddenly pleased look in his eyes. "Max, buddy - I know I was stupid to get myself burnt - but could ya help a brother out?" Of course - all of our good reasons that Michael shouldn't go to Max and get healed didn't really apply now that Max had come straight to him.

Max cocked his head, thinking about it. There seemed to be no particular hurry about the communicator thing, and Michael would probably be more helpful and less of a pain in the butt if Max tried to heal him, so I guessed that he'd go along with it. "Yeah, come on, let's get it done quick." Max seemed to be unwilling to let go most of his urgency. I didn't feel particularly like hanging around to watch, (and Michael might feel better about having a little privacy,) so I slipped back over to my room, just because it seemed like the most reasonable place to go.

I nearly tripped over a little bundle of pale blue fabric sitting on the floor - the gorgeous dress that Isabel had made for me. It wasn't nearly so lovely now - dirty, sweaty, and with a bit of crusty stuff sticking to it... was that dried vomit? (Eww.) When had I ever spewed on the dress? I couldn't remember. As I examined it, I found other stains - little drops of blood - maybe I had scratched myself on something when I fell - and also a tear.

And yet, it only took a wave of my hand and the fabric was whole again, and as freshly clean as if it had just come from a dry cleaner's place. Too bad just waving a hand and using a bit of alien power didn't solve other problems that easily.

When I next checked, Michael's sunburn was nearly gone, and Rath hurried everybody inside the room and closed the door. Things became very dark - Max was unplugging or shutting off anything that produced artificial light - Michael's clock radio, and one of Alex's gizmos that I didn't get too good a look at. In the relative silence, a bunch of faraway sounds could be heard - muffled traffic driving down the street... gulls flying somewhere nearby and squawking to each other.

"Okay - no time like the present," Michael said. He must have been within arm's reach of the communicator, because its tiny red light suddenly appeared, the only thing that I could see clearly in the whole room. "This is Michael Guerin calling for Raydeleen, the Gerrvellka of Queen Emeritus Alinda. With me here is Max Evans and... some of our other friends. Is anyone receiving this transmission??"

There was a soft pause. "I'm receiving. This is the comm room at Galandarr base, in the Southern Erggentia province of Antar. None of the people you mentioned are here, but I can get off the circuit if they come on."

Max laughed softly. "Hi, comm room. Do we need to adjust our transmission any, or is it just a question of waiting, do you think?"

"Umm... I'm not sure quite how you've got your conical beamer aimed, but everything else seems pretty good, Roswell. Let's give 'em a few minutes."

"We're not actually in Roswell at the moment," Michael corrected. "We're based in another town in a neighboring state on Earth."

"But you can call us Roswell anyway if you need a code name," Max answered. "Is there anybody there who might like to talk to us, actually? Someone, err..."

"Somebody important in the Royalist organization?" the comm-room guy answered, seeming a little pleasantly self-deprecating about the idea that he wasn't important. "Umm... there's Marshallah Tweyn. I... I can have him sent for, but he probably won't want to get involved if you have business with Rayde."

That question was suddenly interrupted as another voice spoke to us over the communicator. "Sorry for the delay, Roswell. This is comm for Sanctuary. Rayde will be coming on momentarily." The suddenness of that surprised me.

"Alright, I guess that's your cue. Sorry we couldn't talk longer, and goodbye Galandarr," Michael chimed in.

"Good luck. Galandarr, signing off."

We waited for 'momentarily' maybe thirty seconds, nobody volunteering anything more. Suddenly. "Max! This is Rayde. Do we really have contact?"

Max laughed at the way that was put. "Yes, I think so Rayde. It's nice to meet you."

"You too, though I feel like I know you already from the reports that have reached me."

"Sometime we're going to have to talk about *that* in a little bit more detail," Max said pointedly.

"Alright, your highness, but not just at the moment. Michael?"

"I'm right here, Rayde," Michael answered. "Hi there."

"Hello to you too. And I'd like to get introduced to your friends, if that's okay."

Hmm... was there a particular reason for that? Might be simple politeness, or not wanting to get thrown off her stride if one of us suddenly came into the conversation. Then again, maybe they wanted to voiceprint all of us for future reference, or something like that. "Okay, well... first, Maria DeLuca, a human, and... well, and my significant other," Michael introduced her. "Maria, you can say something, right?"

"Hello, Rayde," Maria chimed in. "Feels weird to actually be talking to an alien I've never met, on another planet."

"I can imagine, Maria," Rayde answered. "So nice to make your acquaintance." A short pause. "Michael, I didn't quite get the meaing of the phrase you used in introducing her. Maria's a significant what??"

I couldn't help snickering at that. Seemed like all kinds of cultural misunderstandings like that could pop up with these translators. "I'm his girlfriend," Maria filled in. "Romantically attached... not married, or betrothed or anything like that, but a formal stage of pre-commitment."

"Ahh, I see."

"And, as for our other friends, the ones you were speaking to yesterday," Max said. "Or trying to, because we were having technical difficulties. Are... are you aware that a second group of four hybrids based off the royal four's DNA were engineered??"

"Yes, and planted in Moo York City." This time, what escaped was a wild hoot of laughter. "The exact nature of their development was unclear, although a directive in the Royalist hierarchy has established that the lineage of the Roswell group is considered to take priority." She considered for a moment. "Do you have some of the Moo York hybrids there with you?"

"It's New York," Rath said very clearly and deliberately, "and yes. I'm the New York version of Rath, if you want to use that to distinguish me from Michael."

There was a long pause. "Michael, can you say something again? I'm trying to calibrate my equipment here to tell you apart from... from Rath? Or should I call you something else..."

"Rath is fine," he said.

"That was Rath," Michael explained. "Just in case he fouled up your equipment. Let's see... if I have to say something, how about if I ask how Tess and the baby are doing?"

"I'll get to that in a moment," Rayde said softly. "Rath, once again, if that's okay. I've almost got the distinction down."

"Alright," Rath said. "For the record, I conspired with Lonnie - the New York Vilandra, and murdered my brother Zan with her help. But... but I've been trying to make up for what I've done... and I helped Alex Whitman - the human that Tess took advantage of to find her way home, and saved his life from her."

"Alright..." Rayde answered a moment after he had finished unloading. "You said friends, Max. Who's the other New York hybrid?"

"That would be me," I finally said, realizing that my time had come. "Ava... named, obviously, after my Antarian progenitor."

"I... I see." I could hear Rayde take a deep breath. "Max, Michael... am I to assume that by bringing Rath and Ava to this conference, you are expressing your explicit confidence in them??" Max blinked, and looked over at us like he wasn't one hundred percent sure how to reply to that.

"They've helped us out a lot," he said after a moment. "You can speak freely to them."

"I see. Well... Tess is doing well enough, though she might well have a thing or two to complain about if she were actually speaking to you." Maria snickered at that. "Max, your son is doing well... our doctors still aren't sure about how her condition will progress, since both she and the baby are half human, but the tentative due date is... erm, in three to three and a half months, human time."

"Hmm," Maria counted off on her fingers, mumbling so quietly that I couldn't hear her. "That seems a little early, on human terms."

"Yeah, but we expected a little weirdness like that," Max agreed. "Thank you, Rayde. Is there anything else important you think I should know about that situation?"

"Umm... actually, yes. At the same time as we were running Tess through medical tests to establish her health and that of the baby... well, some of the people who established the original plan to create the human hybrids are still with us, and they wanted to examine her to see how well their plans worked. We don't have too much information at this time - but the readings they took from Tess with regards to the non-genetic aspects of Ava that were implanted into her... are not at all what they were expecting. Something may have gone badly wrong."

"So, you're saying that according to her soul, or her energy, or whatever," Michael translated, "Tess is *not* Max's true bride. Not an accurate reincarnation, as it were, of the old Queen Ava?"

"Umm... that's what it seems, though I'm still not certain what to make of that," Rayde admitted. "We have no idea if the same thing would affect any of the rest of you - I just thought that it was something that you should know."

"Um, alright," Max said. "Thank you. Is there anything else?"

"What... what about Stellynfrus Magna?" Michael asked. "The colony world, after Isabel and I left..."

"We left where?" Isabel interrupted, opening the door. All of a sudden a horrendous burst of static emanated from the communicator.

"Dammit, you can be in or you can be out, just close the damn door now!!" Rath growled at her. More than a little taken aback, Isabel pulled Alex through the door with her, (probably because he'd have opened the door anyway even if she'd have shut him out,) and closed the door. Max counted out a few seconds softly, then spoke again.

"Rayde, are you there?? Sorry for the disturbance, but... well, Isabel has arrived, as well as her romantic attachment, Alex Whitman."

"Umm... yes, I'm here," Rayde answered, though there seemed to be a popping sound attaching to her voice now. "Nice to meet you Isabel, Alex."

"Say something," I whispered to Izzie. "So that she knows your voice."

"Umm... hello there," Isabel said. "I'm - I'm a little confused about what's going on, so I'm going to shut up and see if I can pick it up as you guys go along. Alex?"

"Erm, likewise I'm sure," Alex quipped. "Romantic attachment Alex Whitman over and out." Even though I couldn't see Alex's face, somehow I was completely sure he was grinning to describe himself that way.

"I was just telling Rayde," Michael continued, "or asking her, about the colony on Stellynfrus after we left. Was there a fight between Kivar's ships and the old royalists, or were things settled peacefully??"

"Peacefully and more or less quiet - although since then, Kivar has built a garrisoned fort on that world, not far from where you originally landed in the Granilith," Rayde's voice replied. "Probably just covering the remote possibility that you might try the same trick the exact same way again."

"Well, we'd better not need to I guess," Isabel whispered.

"Is there anything else?" Rayde asked. "It's very interesting speaking with you, not to mention educational, but I'm afraid I have to get ready to meet an envoy from Larek."

"How... how is Alinda doing?" Max blurted out.

There was a long-ish pause. "Her... her health is not good, Max. The mutation that is spreading through her circulatory system is highly resistant to healing powers. We have been using other medical techniques imported from nearby worlds... but it's hard to know what will work safely on an Antarian, and what treatments that would be safe for others might happen to kill her." Isabel gasped somewhere in the middle of that, probably more than once, and I think I saw Alex wrapping his arms around her. "I'll arrange, if I can, for her to speak to the two of you directly... I know that that would raise her spirits enormously. Michael too, and Ava, if they can be on the line." Rath grunted at being left out, but Rayde didn't seem to notice.

"Alright," Max said. "I... I think we can probably leave it at that for today, though we have lots of more questions. Good luck with the envoy."

There was a throaty chuckling sound over the line. "Thanks, Max. Good bye everybody!!" After a moment of silence, somebody turned the light on, and Alex opened the door again.

"Okay, well, we've made contact with the 'Sanctuary', wherever that is," Michael summarized, "and found out a few interesting things. What's next??"

"Umm... I think I'd like to get back to the beach," I suggested. "Anybody else with me?" Rath waved enthusiastically... right, he probably didn't want me to go meet up with Kyle and spend a lot of time alone with him. Big surprise.

"I dunno that I want to go anywhere with that much sun quite yet," Michael joked. "Check out the street promenade maybe? I think there's some cool video arcades and a short film theater down there."

"Okay, I guess," Maria said. "But you'd better not ignore me and just play NHL breakout for two hours."

Max decided to come back to the beach... which didn't surprise me, if only that he'd want to meet Liz again. Maybe they'd agree to go elsewhere from there. Isabel and Alex exchanged a couple of looks in a row and said that they wanted to just hang around the place and talk. So that was pretty much everybody. Max hid the communicator back in his book bag and then the three of us went out to the van.

I wasn't really sure what to make of the whole conversation. The notion that Tess was still considered the real thing, to an extent, and I was just a failed copy of her was hard to swallow. I can understand why Rath is upset at the idea of no-one paying attention to him as long as Michael is around. But the thought of those scientists poking and prodding at Tess and deciding that she's not 'right' either was something I wasn't sure if I felt even better about. (Though I kind of liked the idea that the original Ava wouldn't have been capable of what she did, for obvious reasons.) And hearing that the old queen was so close to death confused and upset me on just another level.

"Wanna go into the water, when we get there?" I asked Rath. "There are some cool rocky islets that you can try diving off of."

"Hmm. Sounds cool," he told me with a smile.

----------

Kyle insisted on coming along for the big swim, and things between the three of us started to feel quarter-way comfortable - well, for me at least. The whole thing about the floating museum seemed to have been either entirely forgotten or delayed because of my attack of beverage poisoning... and I felt like I didn't want to be the first to mention it. Max and Liz decided that they were going to try to find some way to bus over to the street promenade and find Michael and Maria there, so it was just the three of us left at the beach - we found a Tex-Mex patio place to eat dinner and hung around to watch fireworks that someone was shooting off from a boat around twilight... it was cool to see all the brilliant lights of the explosions reflected in the water and distorted by the wavy surface.

Wasn't much activity back at the flophouse once we'd driven back. I went up to my room and found Liz already dressed for bed, but sitting up and reading a paperback book. We chatted some about our days... not too much, and then all of a sudden I blurted out a question about the day before, when I'd noticed that Liz looked more than usually hot and flushed when she and Max showed up, and she hadn't said much about what they'd been up to.

"Umm... that. Wow." She giggled nervously. "I... I haven't even told Maria this - though I probably will, it's just that everybody's been so busy, and she and I have had less access than usual to a good batch of privacy for catching up on, well..." She trailed off awkwardly, not meeting my gaze.

"Did... did you and Max make it together?" I asked. "Umm, well, you know what I mean... did you fuck?"

Liz blushed even more at my use of the word, but she shook her head. "No, um, not in the strict sense at least. But... but we probably went further than... than we've ever been before. We were out driving, and got out and walked together for a bit to appreciate a particularly beautiful and lonely bit of scenery. Didn't seem like there was anyone around for miles. Before long, we were both lying down on the grass, kissing, and then... then he stopped kissing my mouth, and, umm..."

"I think I get the picture," I said. Liz was the kind of girl who wouldn't really be comfortable with handing out a lot of details... though somehow I suspected that Maria might get a little more info than me. (Liz might tell Isabel a lot, but this was the sort of thing that neither of them would feel comfortable talking about, considering that Max was Isabel's brother.) "So... was he any good?"

"Umm... I - I'm not quite sure how to answer that - I have no basis for comparison, and I don't think he has any experience." Hmm... guess Max didn't go down on Tess while they were together... I suppose that makes sense. Whatever influence she had on him would have been directed in other ways... as much as Tess might have loved to get pleasured in that way by Max, it wouldn't have advanced her plans in any important way. Which meant, I guess, that it made sense as a way for them to move forward, when Liz might still feel awkward about... about making love to-- "But some fun was definitely had, and I think that he might get a LOT better with just a little practice!"

"Hmm... okay, cool," I agreed. "Did... did you return the favor? Either then, or some other time?"

"Umm... that got interrupted," Liz admitted. "By you, though I know you didn't do it on purpose. We... we had slipped out back behind the Alamo building, and -- and Michael caught us in the middle of it when he was looking to tell us that you'd collapsed on the dance floor." She sighed. "We haven't really got a great opportunity to try again, though - though I think that Max probably had a LOT of frustration to take out on that bartender when interrogating him." I laughed a bit at the mental image.

"You're probably right."

"So, what about you, girl? I've kinda picked up the basics of the love triangle thing. Leaning closer to making a decision either way?"

"Not... not really, so far as I can notice," I admitted. "I've been having a lot of fun with both of them."

"Oh. Well, maybe you'll figure it out soon," Liz said. "Or not - whatever works."

"Yeah, thanks." I stretched out on the bed, and a few seconds later Liz put her book aside, (she hadn't been reading it since we really started talking,) and flipped off the light. "These hot summer nights really suck. I feel like I'm never going to get to sleep."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Epilog

CONCLUSION:

(The big love triangle moment.)

The rest of the holiday seemed like it passed by really quickly. Well, it was just two more days, but... Day four I went to the Aquarium, and then Liz dragged me along to the museum of science and technology, which actually wasn't too bad. The morning of day five a bunch of us, (the three musketeers, being myself, Kyle, and Rath, plus Michael and Maria,) went on a fun boat cruise, and then, along with Isabel and Alex, we hung around on the beach that afternoon.

I'm still not sure exactly what gave me the cue, except that Rath and Kyle were throwing the frisbee back and forth while I tanned and watched them, and I realized that somehow through competing over me, they'd started to become friends. And that's when the answer popped into my head. Part of me wanted to wait, to be sure, but somehow I didn't - I jumped up, nearly popping a nipple out of my bikini top with the sudden movement, and once I'd taken a moment to tuck myself back in, I hurried over to the guys, and the three of us went off for a walk around the beach.

"Okay, so I kinda got a declaration to make, and it seems sensible that both of you can guess the general nature of it, at least."

"The big love triangle moment," Kyle agreed with a little smile. "Where you make your decision. Do you want to just blurt it out, or ramble on and on for a really long time and keep both of us in an agony of impatience?"

"Umm... hehehe, something a little bit in between?" I ventured. "I... first off, I really love the fact that we've all been able to hang out, and some of us have gotten to know each other a lot better, over this trip. But unfortunately, it wouldn't really work long term being the three musketeers. So..." Sigh. "Kyle." He brightened a bit when I said his name, but then caught himself and looked at me a little bit more cautiously. "I... think that the two of us could have been something really great together, if it had been a different time or different circumstances. I *really* hope that we can still be great friends, but... but no, you're not the one I'm picking."

"Ehh, my heart, she will recover slowly... but them's the breaks, huh?" Kyle smiled slightly, trying to put the best face on it, and I suffered a momentary siege of doubt. "Rath, congrats man... and treat her right. We both know she's probably out of both of our leagues, right??" He slapped Rath's palm in an impromptu guy salute. "Umm... assuming that you ARE picking Rath, and not doing some kind of really corny thing and dumping BOTH of us."

I had to laugh. "No. I... Rath, I'm not sure if I can explain or put into words the reason that I made my choice. Maybe if it's love, there's no way I would've been able to anyway. Something deep inside me just kept leading me back to you. I've known you just about forever, and never thought of you as a romantic prospect, because all of the signs were pointing us other ways. But... but I'm definitely up for trying it out, and something tells me that you haven't changed your mind in the past few days."

Rath had to laugh softly at that. "No, not at all." He stepped close, his hands resting on my shoulders, and then all of a sudden we were kissing - the first time that I'd ever kissed Rath. I'd kissed Kyle a few times, even after Rath admitted he was jealous... but this was one thing that Rath had never gotten his turn at, until now. And after feeling his lips against mine for just a few seconds, it was hard to imagine how I could ever have doubted that this was the right call. No offense to Kyle's proficiency as a kisser, which was amazing as I said before, but... but somehow I just knew, right? Like above, it's not something that I can explain, just what I know deep down.

"I... I'm not sure how this is going to play out," Rath admitted, stretching his arms around my back. "The... the only other big thing I've ever had before was with Lonnie, and that really wasn't normal or romantic... by the standards of anybody in the galaxy except for Lonnie, and maybe me because I didn't know any better. So this is probably going to be a lot of new territory for me, and I don't really do well with new territory because I get defensive and stubborn and close-minded sometimes, I'm not sure if you've noticed..."

I shook my head at him. "Rath, honey, you're talking too much. Starting something like this is probably going to be breaking new ground for me too..." Zan and my relationship had had its own peculiarities, and I'd never came close to giving my heart to anyone else since he was gone. "And... and we're both kinduv off the beaten track, and likely to end up settling down in some completely new kind of give and take that isn't normal to anybody in the galaxy... except for the two of us." Pause. "And I can't wait to see where that spot is."

Rath grinned. "You wanna try jumping off the far end of the pier?"

"You're just hoping this little suit gets torn off."

"Guilty as charged." He hung his head slightly. Past him, I saw Kyle giving a little wave and heading back towards Max and Liz, giving us a little privacy.

"Cool. Let's go." I took Rath's hand and headed off towards the hill that the pier had been built off of. He blinked in surprise - and grinned.

----------

EPILOG.

Okay, it's about a week since we got home from Texas. The drive home was pretty boring, but life since then has definitely NOT been. Rath and I still aren't quite clear on the ground rules to our new 'thing' - one detail that completely skipped my mind was that we would still be roommates when we got back home to Roswell. Being a guy, and not the subtlest of guys, Rath... well, he made no secret of his opinion that since we'd known each other for years, there was no reason not to get immediately to the hot-n-heavy. Even though every time I kiss him he still makes me as dizzy as that first time on the beach, I've managed to keep things going a little bit slower... not glacial, but just giving myself some time to appreciate each new little step before moving on to the next.

Everybody else in the gang has spent the time getting ready for going back to school... even Isabel, who's living up to her resolution of repeating senior year in full, even though she only has a few classes and exams to make up from taking off early last spring. I asked her about it, and she just said that she wants to spend the time in class with Alex and all the rest of her friends. Rath was there at the time, and pointed out that advanced geometry class couldn't possibly count as quality time, and she agreed, but looked over at Alex and said that... "if that's where he's going to be anyway, then it's where I want to be too, even if it doesn't meet the technical definition of fun."

I hope that you enjoy this little memoir of the "I know an alien club"s trip to Corpus Christi. I've had fun writing it - know that these were days that I never want to forget, no matter what happens next. But this definitely isn't the end of the adventures. You see...

I was over at Michael's place this afternoon, in fact, nearly all of us were. Liz was working at the cafe, and Max looked a little depressed that he and Kyle were the only ones who were unattached there, (Kyle wasn't that much wilder about the notion I guess,) when all of a sudden, the alien communicator started shrieking loud enough that all of us could hear it over the rerun season finale of "Angel." There was a second of frozen panic, and then Max and Isabel both rushed over to find the little gadget. It was in a pocket of Max's jacket - he had been thinking about trying to use it a little bit later. But in that moment, all they were thinking about was trying to shut off the alert siren before Michael's neighbors started complaining about it.

I was up right behind the two of them, and after a second's pause, Max pushed both of us, and himself, into the nearest enclosable, windowless, dark place available - Michael's bathroom. (At least darkness spared me from having to see how grimy the sink had gotten.) "Hello?" he called into the transceiver.

"Max? Max Evans?" He made a bit of a reply sound, but got cut off before it could turn into a word. "This is Galandarr base! You... you have to get ready to run. Kivar is *coming to earth* with a full army squadron to back him up! He's got scores to settle with all of you!!"

We're still not sure what we're going to do. It's not an immediate crisis - based on the type of ship that Kivar left Antar in, he won't be here for three weeks at least. But... but what do we need to have done by the time he gets here? Where do we go??

THE END - for now...


End file.
